Sanity
by CFTW
Summary: Suppose, just suppose, a picture could actually talk back. Oh yes, she can. I'm not mad, I'm in complete control of my Sanity. Everyone else is Mad.
1. Half

_I've had this...idea, in my head for so long. I don't want to push myself to hard with these stories. So if (when) I continue this, it will probably be a short story by my standards of what I consider complete. I just want it out of my head for now. It's an idea...and it's not a pretty one._

_This will be short, and any following chapters will also be so. I'm sorry in advance, but I can't afford to make them any longer. I'll still try to give quality though. XD._

_I do not own Frozen or any of it's affiliates, copyrights or ideals. Only my imagination is my own._

_Welcome, to..._

_Sanity._

_~ C F Winchester._

_**Sanity**_

_**Prologue:**_ _**Half**_

At fourteen, Anna knew much about this world, at least, much about the world she had been exposed to.

She knew that the staff was small, selective and professional. They did their job as servants and were not meant to be seen. This meant they were not ideal subjects to shower affection on or talk to. They often disappeared the first chance they got. They were a meal in your room and made beds, ironed clothes and clean laundry. Nothing more.

The castle grounds were enclosed, secretive, protective from attack or kidnapping of a young princess for ransom. She was not to leave those locked gates. Ever.

"It's just you and me, Huh Joan?"

Anna brushes a spare speck of dust off her favorite picture of the house, a robust frame of the bold Joan of Arc. Her fingers dance along the frame and play along the reflected light the frame affords from the resident windows. She moves her hand upwards to gently brush some dust of the painting itself.

"You never tell me to go away, do you? You never shut me out. You listen to me."

She huffs at this train of thought, and collapses unto a nearby chair. Bitterly, she watches a grandfather clock tick her life away. Sighing she looks back at Joan.

"Of course you don't run away. You have no other choice. You're a picture. You're stuck there, listening to me. If you even can listen."

Letting out a puff of frustrated air, she flops boneless in her chair, looking up at the ceiling now. Her old internal argument. It's a picture, it can't talk or have a mind to answer her, or even listen. Yet...what if it could?

She did not mean imagining it speak back to her, she had done that enough. She meant actually listen and respond. She could swear, half of the time, like some partially buried memory, she would hear Joan really answer a question or comment of hers...she could swear to it.

Anna looked up at the immobile Joan, her head tilted slightly and lips barely parted, eyes wide with curiosity and just a hint of playfulness. Some might call it madness, but Anna was sure, as she spoke out to Joan that she was not mad.

"I'm sorry I doubted you. You do listen, don't you? It won't happen again."

_Never forget it._

As she grinned from the thought, Anna bounded from her chair with a frightful energy compared to her lifelessness before. She had a friend again, someone who cared and wanted to play. What did it matter her so called sister never left her room? That she was locked in this golden prison of a castle? That the staff never so much as stopped for more than "Good Morning Your Highness." or "Your bath is ready."?

She was in complete control of her Sanity.

Anyone who said any different was clearly mad.

_**+~E~+**_

_I've nothing to say here. ~ C F Winchester._


	2. Fifty

_I'm glad someone likes this. XD_

_I do not own Frozen or any of it's affiliates, copyrights or ideals. Only my imagination is my own._

_~ C F Winchester._

_**Sanity**_

_**Chapter One: Fifty**_

"I want to believe that so badly Joan. So, very, badly...but I don't. Elsa does not love me."

Anna looked up imploringly at the picture of Joan of Arc as the clock continued to tick nearby, but it was not Joan who answered her this time, but what must have been the debonair gentleman on his horse off to the side. It was a whisper of a suggestion that made her whip her head about to lock eyes on him and his steed. Yes; it must have been he.

_She wishes to protect you is all._

"Protect me? From what? She's my sister! She's supposed to be my sister..."

Finally, Joan put her two cents in.

_...and this is why I say nothing when you go down this road. It upsets you so. You may think I am ignoring you, but I am only trying to prevent tears. Perhaps she is trying to do the same._

"We used to do everything together."

_She's moved on, haven't you?You love her, you know she loves you, though you don't think it. That is enough. Move on. Now tell me about the squirrel again._

Eyes lighting up, Anna went into high relief detail, vaulting from her chair to illustrate with her hands the animated actions of a squirrel that had hoped the castle walls and had led the gardener on a merry chase about the grounds, cheeks bursting with sunflower seeds and bushy tail alight with action and quiver.

That was freedom; the devil-may-care attitude of the squirrel swashbuckling about and sailing away, finally free from the gardener by shimming up a tree and recklessly hopping over the wall.

It was freedom she'd never have, but she'd love to dream about it. A cough interrupted her reenactment, and her eyes swept the pictures on the walls. No, that cough was from one of the others. The ones who were no fun. The servants. She spun on her heel like a drowsy marionette to look and see a maid standing there looking rather uncomfortable.

"Your highness, dinner is..."

_In the hall. Since when is it anywhere else?_

"...in the hall."

Anna smirked at the predictable aside from a suit of armor. Duh. Breakfast in your chambers, dinner in the hall, supper in the chambers again. The maid spun about and retreated double time with a nervous step that probably had to do with the dull, bored and dead-ish look Anna had given her, mixed in with a casual smirk that probably unsettled her some.

_You should be nicer to them Anna. They are only doing their job. Now go eat. I'll be here when you get back._

She grinned at that. You could always count on Joan. She never left her alone. She was always here, waiting.

Unlike some people...

_**+~E~+**_

_This submission makes my total archived word count run over 800,000 words. I've written a lot here on this site haven't I... ~ C F Winchester._


	3. Forty

_I received no reviews to respond to. _

_I do not own Frozen or any of it's affiliates, copyrights or ideals. Only my imagination is my own._

_~ C F Winchester._

_**Sanity**_

_**Chapter Two: Forty**_

Anna smiled as she hid behind a chair. There was no way they could find her here...but eve as she thought that, a voice snickered in her head. She kept still, but her eyes wandered, and caught to hold the eyes of a little girl standing with an umbrella in the sun, smiling down at her in a field of flowers. Her smile was ore like a leer at this moment, and those beady eye sparkled.

"No, please, don't tell them!"

_Why not? It's hide and seek! She's behind the chair!_

Anna shot like a bullet from her hiding spot like a rat bolting from the scurrying feet of a person. A flash of red and green was all that anyone could see as Anna streaked down the hall and took a sharp turn, almost upsetting the standing of a suit of armor.

_Hey! Watch it, you almost knocked me over!_

"Sorry!"

Anna shot behind a love seat and hid underneath it's skirt, having a reunion with the dust bunnies there. She tried not to cough or sneeze as she held still. A playful voice of a boy floated to her ears and she held her self rigidly still as the imagined footsteps were heard.

_Come out come out wherever you are...does anyone see her?_

_She's not in my sight..._

_I saw her pass but nothing now..._

_I did not see her at all..._

_She has to be somewhere there, no one saw her after that point..._

Ooooh, the big taddle tales! It was not fair playing a hide and seek game with so many people seeking!

Anna kept herself still. If she just made sure none of them could see her...but her fun was cut short by a floating voice.

"Your highness...Miss Anna? Miss Anna~"

_Ha ha, she's being called, she'll have to come out now. I win!_

"Miss Anna!"

Anna slowly crawled out form her hiding spot, but before any pictures could jeer at her, the maid rounded the corner and beheld Anna in all her dusty glory.

"Miss Anna! Your dress is filthy! What have you been up too Miss? Your bath is ready, and not a moment too soon as I can see."

_I've won, I've won!_

"You haven't won, you cheated!"

Anna muttered the words, but the maid half heard her and turned around.

"I'm sorry Miss? I didn't hear that."

Anna rolled her eyes, or almost did, but the strict look of one of the elder portraits made her pause. That same portrait of an old man barked out at the younger gleeful voice to kindly shut it, because he did cheat, so the game was moot. Anna looked down at her shoes in a picture of meekness.

"Nothing."

Anna simply followed the maid wake silently looking at her shoes...she lost the game...but as she continued to walk, she passed by the corridor that held Joan, and she could hear the voice from far off of encouragement. She'd get him next time.

Of course she would.

_**+~E~+**_

_Essentially these shorts are on a continuous time line, so each chapter is some time after the last one. Whether they are the same day or several days in between is up to you, but I personally interpret them as being consecutive days, unless otherwise stated...but it's up to you. ~ C F Winchester._


	4. Let

_For anyone who cares to vote, I have a rate me poll up._

_I should have learned by now that my luck is the pits. Every time I submit a chapter for a story that I have already written for within the last twenty four hours, it does not update the roster. So I don't show up on the first page of a section, and I believe no readers get a message for a new chapter update, sometimes my hits for that day also get eaten. (I.E: They disappear for all stories, and all stories read 0 everything for a week or so, fun.)_

_So I had to take it down and post it another day, that day being yesterday._

_I do not own Frozen or any of it's affiliates, copyrights or ideals. Only my imagination is my own._

_~ C F Winchester._

_**Sanity**_

_**Chapter ****Three: Let**_

Pictures do not really speak. This Anna knew, but sometimes she swore they did. She paced the hallways, observing them, looking to see if one moved, if a flicker of an eye from a portrait or the creak of an old suit of armor was a sign of life. These were her friends...and recently her talking with them had become so real...

Was she really deluding herself?

She looked sadly at Joan, almost begging the picture to show some sign of life in her eyes. If she tried really hard, she could see a sparkle, but she was not sure if this was imagination or reality. She sighed. It had to be real...it just had to be. The alternative was too grim.

Anna plunked down on the floor. No one remembered. No one cared. She looked about morosely. No picture offered any illuminating comment, not even the suit of armor. For years, had she been talking to lies? Figments of her imagination only?

_Just be brave, have courage._

The whisper was so low, so strained, that Anna was not sure if it was simply her own thought train of an actual voice. Her head whipped about, hair flying. That was Joan. She knew it. It had to be. She strained some more...

Nothing, only silence.

She fell into a sad silence of her own, mourning the loss of her friends.

It was a while later that she picked herself off the floor and beat a weary trek to the door of her sister. She slid down, using the door as a brace for her body until her behind connected with the floor. She almost did not have the heart to ask the question that she had once asked every day with so much hope in her.

Slowly that daily question had become three or four times a week, then simply three, then twice or three times a week. Now it was simply twice, maybe only once. She was still foolish enough to hope sometimes, that's what her brain told her, but her heart kept saying that this would be the time. She'd ope the door this time...

and she would step back ten or so years where her parents were alive and Elsa still loved her with all her heart. When had this started? A sledding accident? Anna strained to remember...something about falling off a sled. She had nearly frozen to death or something, and Elsa had been driving the sled...like she always did.

Was that it? It was such a stupid reason to hide if she wanted to protect her. No. Her sister hated her after it, a much more simple and sensible answer. She wanted her to stay away. Anna had always been adventurous, energetic, dangerous. The calm, cool and collected sister to be queen Elsa wanted nothing to do with such reckless endangerment. She avoided her sister on principle.

Logic said this, but the heart shook and her knees did too. Her body felt ill at the thought. It would not accept the logic the brain was serving, and with some sadness the brain wet back into the kitchen and offered up the thoughts of instead Elsa opening the door this time to go out and play in the snow.

...and like always, the heart would greedily accept this same old recipe of mold and hot air, and let her hand raise just one more time, it promised...just one more. See? She even saw that she had turned around on the ground and her hand was poised in a polite fist ready to knock.

It always went this way.

She sighed.

...and knocked.

"Elsa?"

Silence.

"Can I...come in?"

Silence.

"...Please?"

"Go away Anna."

"...Okay..."

Resigning herself to fate, that's what her brain said, but her eyes said different. They wanted to cry, and her heart said, quite frankly, the brain could go and stuff itself down a hole and let the eyes run away with their salty water...but as Anna stood up, she had to admit...

...the water tasted far more bitter than salty.

"...Bye."

The loneliest person in Arendelle silently padded away.

_**+~E~+**_

_Hello~. How are you all today? Hello Guest, and Hello Grace! I appreciate your feedback! This is a bit longer than normal because I felt like giving a bit more ,but hey, that's perfectly fine since these are excruciatingly short any way. _

_~ C F Winchester._


	5. Us

_For anyone who cares to vote, I have a rate me poll up._

_I can't decide on a length goal to set for this story. I was originally thinking this would be a short story, and that it's goal would be about 20,000 words, but then I thought to myself that I could not possibly make a story so short as an end game goal for it, but I also told myself that, truthfully, I could not see a reason to lengthen it._

_Which was one reason why I started this storyline at Anna being fourteen, it's not far off from the age she is in the movie, hence, this story's rising conflict, climax and eventual conclusion would be a short graph. However, I did leave it more or less open on how I was going to approach the issue, which is one reason I never really give many time stamp markers on these chapters day wise._

_Yet, more and more I find I want to make this longer, at least 40,000 or 80,000, but if this is the case I have some real constraints on how to move forwards. I'll figure it out though~. What are your thoughts?_

_I do not own Frozen or any of it's affiliates, copyrights or ideals. Only my imagination is my own._

_~ C F Winchester._

_**Sanity**_

_**Chapter Four****: Us**_

Us. A word you cannot use without a another person by you. Not...in the usual sense.

Anna was again by Joan, chattering away, only this time, any answer from Joan was forced, fake like.

If truth be told, Anna knew she herself was the one answering her own questions and chattiness. Day by day as more servants told her over and over that pictures did not speak, the voice of Joan grew quieter and quieter, more strained and less...real.

Her mind was closed to the pictures, all but Joan had disappeared...and it looked like soon Joan would be gone too...but Anna had promised. She would never doubt her again. Ever. So she stood, waiting for a response from Joan, and finally the barest of whispers floated to her, and for once, Anna delighted, for though the voice was dim and strained, soft and weak...it felt real.

_You must stop this..._

"Stop what, Joan?"

_Either you believe in full or let it go. You cannot keep...closing the door on me...and expect me to answer you still._

Aghast, Anna's indignation made her voice rise to a squeak.

"I've never closed a door on you Joan! I'm not Elsa! I don't do that...Never!"

_The servants don't believe in me. They fill your head with what they say and that drives me out. I can't talk to me if you don't believe in me._

"B-but..."

_Pictures don't talk Anna._

"No! You're...you're not a picture. You're Joan. You're my friend Joan. Don't...don't leave me alone...you promised!"

…

"Please...you're...the only mother I have left."

Anna paused after saying this. It had slipped out. Mother? But yes...Joan was the person who always talked her out of doing stupid things, gave her advice and company, listened to her stories and wiped away her tears. She was a surrogate mother...and she was not letting her go.

No.

She needed her. Needed that...Us.

"You're not a picture Joan. None of you guys are...You're friends. Brothers, sisters, aunts, mother...I don't need anyone...I have you all."

She repeated this in her head and out loud, over and over, hoping, praying for a voice to come to her...and she fell asleep with the buzz of her own words inside her head...and so she slipped again on the slippery slope, and her climb upwards was halted. She fell again.

These were not pictures or suits of armor, they were friends, family...and family stuck together. Thick and thin.

In madness and in health.

_**+~E~+**_

_Hello~. How are you all today? Curryboh! Hello, and thank you for your stream of reviews. I know they exist and do occasionally enjoy a good short chapter fic, but a writer is their own worst critic. I am used to writing chapters literally ten times this size and over. (The average here is about 600-700 words, I usually call a nice chapter 6000-8000 words. XD). So this is new and refreshing territory for me. _

_Hello Guest, I appreciate your feedback, are you the same guest from last time? XD. _

_~ C F Winchester._


	6. In

_For anyone who cares to vote, I have a rate me poll up._

_I do not own Frozen or any of it's affiliates, copyrights or ideals. Only my imagination is my own._

_~ C F Winchester._

_**Sanity**_

_**Chapter Five****: In.**_

Anna stirred in her sleep, hearing a voice of one of them. The servants. It was a voice she recognized, but in her muddled sate was unable to place. She knew it was a servant however, because it resounded in her ears. One of those voices, the "real" ones, did that.

_Anna, please get up. _

"I don't want any supper."

She could feel a creeping smile in the voice that again resounded in her ears.

_I'm not calling you for supper Anna._

"I want to sleep here."

_I'm not calling you to chastise you on that either, though you really ought to sleep in your bed._

Anna woke up a tad bit more, and her muddled mind attached a name to the voice, one that smacked her awake fully with wide, staring eyes and a heart that dared to hope. No. That could just not be Joan talking...but it was! She rubbed her eyes, for she swore the picture was smiling at her, the eyes dancing with playful malice. She could swear she saw her wave. She shook her head. Another grin from Joan. Another picture leaned against his frame.

_So, she finally sees us for what we are._

Real! The voices sounded real! She shook slightly with the excitement, a frantic heart beating away, nearly rattling her entire body. Joan looked to the other with some reproach, especially as three others hailed greetings.

_Oh don't rush on her at once. Seriously! Let her sort you all out!_

They however, did not listen, and Anna did not mind. She leapt from her chair to see the moon shining bright through the windows, and rejoiced that the servants had left her to sleep on the chair. She wanted to dance along the moonlit corridors, and what better day than now? She zipped in a circle, reveling in greeting everyone she met.

She delighted far more in their strong, wonderfully varied answers, all so real and brilliant like that ever so bright moon. She zoomed down the halls with hardly a sound and burst into the empty ballrooms, where the moon shone in pools from the un-shuttered blinds and the floor un-naturally smooth and clean from years of wiping with no dancing. She spun on her feet, promptly falling down on her behind, but she was giddy with happiness as frames pushed her on, on, to the garden.

Finally the garden was a place where happiness could take place, as a lone girl danced about in the moonlight, taking a partner at each turn with a crowd all in it's own of the air and mind. To any who would watch her, she was alone

But far from lonely. Alone and free.

To her however...

There was a full ball in swing and she was it's princess.

She finally went to bed at dawn, slipping into her chambers just before the maids had woken up. Later on she would dance and slide by Elsa's locked door.

She needn't bother stopping to try.

Unlike her, she had friends.

...and she had let them in.

_**+~E~+**_

_curryboh, I often explore the topic of humanity, mortality and other such issues in my works. It's part of my love to explore the reality of a world I am writing for._

_Hello Sky! I'm glad this is meeting that standard, but I wonder if I can exceed it. XD_

_~ C F Winchester._


	7. Worry

_For anyone who cares to vote, I have a rate me poll up.  
Review responses are at the bottom!  
_

_I apologize for the delay, but I had much to do, and little drive to write for this. =S_

_I do not own Frozen or any of it's affiliates, copyrights or ideals. Only my imagination is my own._

_~ C F Winchester._

_**Sanity**_

_**Chapter Six****:Worry.**_

"Now really Kai, you can't think that way. The child is simply lonely."

Kai rubbed his face with a handkerchief, whisking away sweat. He tried a different approach. Besides him, a pile of carrots sat looking forlorn but peeled, sliced and washed. He picked up a potato to skin it.

"She speaks to the pictures on the walls, the armor in the halls, and to any of us not at all!"

Shaking her head, the other looks out the window in the kitchen. Winter was coming soon. Not yet; but soon. Anna would soon have a birthday, and Elsa too. This was no time to speak of such things as where the kingdom would go or to whom and for what reason.

"Anna is a lonely child. She speaks to the air in thought to hear her own voice."

Kai shook his head, adamant. He tossed away his potato into the sink and picked up another, gouging out any eyes he came across with perfect precision. His knife grated over the skin before committing to the purpose of peeling.

"No, she speaks to the air and expects an answer from it! She does not simply suppose and think, she holds conversations with it, the pictures, she pauses for their speech, and calls them by names! Several times I have walked by to see her sitting by the picture of Joan of Arc and having a conversation with it!"

"Oh you speak nonsense."

Kai's face hardened and he adopted a tone as if one were reading a script, or speaking from rote memorization. He did not care to adopt the tones Anna had been speaking in,they had been far too conspiratory, far too familiar.

"Oh Joan, what do you think of this? Isn't it a lovely day Joan? Did I tell you what I saw today, Joan? On my honor I tell you I have heard her thus!"

Gerda shook her head again and turned back to the dough she was pounding. Kai tossed another potato to join the growing pile of peeled ones in the sink and scooped another few to set in front of him. Besides him, washed celery waited patiently.

"It matters not. Elsa is the eldest."

"Gerda, you can't be serious, the girl never comes out of her room, I don't even know what she looks like anymore, so long I have not seen her! Besides, she can't...you simply cannot rule a kingdom from your bedroom! She has no control, she will be unable, how can she lead?"

"No listen here!"

Gerda had heard enough and she spoke in sharp tones as her hands pounded the dough with un-warranted force. Her eyes were focused on the task at hand, not bothering to look Kai in the eye. Kai simply peeled another potato.

"If truth be told, the girl has considered the option of stepping down from the line-"

Kai set down his knife and brought the celery towards him, washing it even though it was already washed. He separated the stalks and broke off the leaves. Gerda shook her head at him, but he continued. He knew very little about the royal family...but he knew that Elsa did not care for celery leaves. Anna however, ate them.

He gruffly had to admit that was perhaps the limit of his knowledge of the girls. It wasn't true but it might as well be. He spoke again.

"You see what I mean however? This proves my point. This will leave the kingdom to-"

"Hush! Anna is not mad. Simply lonely. Very, very lonely. She had created imaginary friends and attached them to faces she is familiar with. She is a smart girl. She knows the difference."

Kai took a breath and rolled up his sleeves, looking about for a cutting knife he seemed to have misplaced. He wanted to dice the celery now.

"I fear you may be wrong. Perhaps at once time, yes. Now? I fear her imaginary friends have become very real...for her and her alone."

He located his knife and began to dice the celery. Gerda sighed.

"She knows the difference."

In another part of the castle, the sun shone in slices through the curtains, dancing about since they had been taken and tossed about in the frenzy of an energetic ball of green dresses and strawberry hair, Anna whirled about the room, having no care of danger from injury as she turned this particular study into a jungle gym. She grinned at the exhilaration of her speed and sheer freedom. No rules, no regulations, no cares, she was free. Yes she was alone, but she was alone and free!

She paused when an admonishment rang out in the room.

"Young lady; you are a princess! Kindly behave like one for at least an hour! You came in here for a book, how did you end up behaving like a monkey?"

She turned about to look sheepishly at the speaker.

"I'm sorry. But it's so fun to be free, to enjoy life! I'm alive! Why can't I enjoy that?"

He scowled at her in reproof. Then he adopted a mock tone of thought.

"Perhaps because you have duties to uphold? A certain decorum as a member of royalty to pledge?"

Anna let out a tortured sigh that sounded more like a frustrated yell, but it was muted, and the reproving glare was enough of an admonishment. Anna tried again with a softer sigh.

"All that weight must be getting to you, you used to be more fun Atlas."

Atlas, for his part, simply shrugged.

Anna, for her part, simply grinned.

_**+~E~+**_

_Hello Double. I am glad you like the psychology used here. It makes you wonder who will win I the end...and if you can truly call it a victory. XD. Curry, I always try to respond to a review, because I feel they are so very rare. I may have written a lot on here, but I usually write for "the other side of the track" meaning I enjoy exploring ideas that are not popular, odd ideas that usually don't follow the typical mold. So I don't usually get a flood of reviews as I would had I constructed a fluff or something else. _

_But then, if I did that just for the reviews, I would have felt like I sold my soul away. XD_

_~ C F Winchester._


	8. Price

_For anyone who cares to vote, I have a rate me poll up.  
Review responses are at the bottom!  
_

_Again I didn't write for any of my stories, only this time it's because of my job._

_I do not own Frozen or any of it's affiliates, copyrights or ideals. Only my imagination is my own._

_~ C F Winchester._

_**Sanity**_

_**Chapter Seven:**** Price**_

"Do you wanna build a snowman?"

She had not heard those words in at least two weeks. She was happy, but curious. Well no.

To say Elsa was happy was a lie. A dead cold lie. She was miserable, and her room showed this, as the frozen walls and heavy snow covered all surfaces available, even the walls, as a near blizzard raged down from the roof, which was also coated in thick ice.

Her sister, sweet, Anna. The little girl whom she had almost killed. How long had it been since she had seen the bubbly red headed bullet? Bounding about like a rubber ball with extra spring and even a pair of wings, the girl was tireless and hopeless...

...and oh so wonderfully warm and full of life. A vibrant being that just seemed to never be able to be sad, save for once.

A single, heartbreaking call to let her in after their parents perished.

The snow became a real blizzard now, and Elsa, looking up with the frozen lines of fallen rain on her face, could only let her heart fall further. She could not let her sister in. Never. Ever. Not with this to show for it. It was not safe.

Conceal it.

Who had Anna found to make her happy again? Who had she found to forget?

Don't feel it.

Did she even remember her?

Of course she did.

She had to.

Three quick knocks, a happy chipper kind of knock. It wasn't the servants.

"Elsa?"

Speak of the devil...

Her heart both rose and fell at the same time. Anna...

Elsa looked about her blizzard struck room. It looked as if she lived in the middle of a frozen winter wonderland, a place that never stopped snowing and showed it. Ice, snow that came up to the waist on the floor...icicles that came down to poke through her bed canopy from the ceiling...

Anna could not come in.

Not today, not ever.

Her heart fell as she head the voice, chipper and happy as always. In fact, it was so happy, it was painful. It was almost as if she were asking Elsa out of habit, not out of actual want to come in. She was an after thought. A duty to be fulfilled.

This...this was the price.

"Can I come in?"

Silence. The voice became wheedling, mischievous, and all the more painful to hear. Anna was the sun, burning bright with the power of summer. A red sun. This was the price for power.

"Do you want to build a snowman?"

"...Go away Anna."

She, Elsa, was a blue moon. A blue moon of the biting winter, shining coldly on a clear, frozen landscape. The moon and the sun eternally chase each other in the sky.

"...Okay!"

That voice...so happy. Even when she said no. She was happy now to hear no. She had someone else now. She had found, finally, what Elsa had wanted her to find. Something else, the will to go away. The sun and the moon...eternally chase...until finally, only one chases, as the other runs free.

The sun runs free...and the moon, the moon who said with all her heart for the sun to go away...find she doesn't want her to go.

"...Come back..."

Of course, she said it to quietly, to herself...Anna was long gone.

"I do. I do want to build a snowman."

The snow intensified. The ice roared and grew. No one heard her.

No one can hear an icicle cry.

Not during a blizzard they can't.

_**+~E~+**_

_Curry, of course, most of them are of real people, but I won't say anything else on the subject. Only that you might have a possibility of being right, though if you are, not completely._

_Double, I will follow through and go into Frozen, but the movie will be different. How different though will be fun for you guys to see, I hope._

_~ C F Winchester._


	9. Thirty

_For anyone who cares to vote, I have a rate me poll up.  
Review responses are at the bottom!  
_

_On my story,"Bonds Under Ocean Waves, I gave a full report on installment twelve of why I am late for all my stories, but in case you don't want to read all that, a short one here for a story designed to be short chapter wise._

_I became ill recently and was unable to leave my house at all, let alone use my computer for anything besides watching videos and falling asleep in the middle of them. When I went back to work, I had a mountain to do to catch up, so I was unable to settle down to type until now. I apologize._

_This week is busier than the bees that have spontaneously arose since the heat has come again. I'll tell you something, and I'm not saying this because this is a Frozen story, I'm saying it because it's the truth. _

_I Hate Summer. It's muggy, it's full of mosquitoes, power outages and the smell of anything left out in the sun with an expiration date, and it's also the days I have the least time to myself to write. Poo._

_~ C F Winchester._

_**Sanity**_

_**Chapter Eight:**** Thirty**_

Anna wasn't very happy with Joan.

Joan had told her to go and apologize to Elsa.

For what?

Anna didn't know, something about acting too chipper when asking if she wanted to build a snowman.

It was ridiculous.

Was she supposed to ask Elsa that question while acting as if she were inviting her to a cemetery for a funeral?

Admittedly that's how she used to ask her it.

When she was alone.

Desperate.

In need of the one piece of family she had left.

But she wasn't anymore! Elsa was the one stuffed up in her room all alone and miserable. Why should she continue to act that way too?

She didn't want to mope about her room staring at the same four walls all day everyday without only a few steps in either direction of variance. Hey the entire castle was hardly big enough for her as is!

...and she hadn't even tried to pick up any pictures or suits of armor to see if it had hidden passages yet!

Out of pure respect of course. Her friends lived in those frames.

Why would she mess with someone's living space?

Forcing the suits of armor off their pedestals so that they fell and often broke as some door opened?

Her friends talked to her daily, a passage would only entertain her for maybe a few hours.

It wasn't an equal trade. Besides, the pictures would TELL her if they had some secret behind them.

She had already been told about plenty of secrets in the castle.

Like the fact that behind Gilda there was a crevice that seemed to have been a message hiding spot once. There was an old piece of paper that she had found there...but it was in a language she couldn't understand.

That was months ago, she had thrown it away. It wasn't worth much time.

Anna found herself outside Elsa's door.

Her mouth was set into a frown, but she rose her hand none the less. She almost swore she could hear Joan telling her off for stalling...but Joan wasn't down this hallway. She sighed.

She knocked on the door and she heard a stifled gasp and a gust of something swooshing by. Anna guessed it was Elsa's dresses or something or other. She cleared her throat.

"Elsa?"

Pause.

Long Pause.

_Okay then...I need to make the second move too._

"Elsa? I'm sorry."

Another pause. Anna waited a while longer and then turned around. She had apologized. Joan should be happy with that. It wasn't her fault if Elsa didn't answer back. Yet there was a creak...and then a voice so close to the door I swore if I looked I could see her feet...

"Anna...?"

"Elsa?"

"Why are you sorry?"

It was her turn to pause now. Really, it was the same question she had asked Joan. Seriously, why was she sorry? She might as well answer what she thought...but while she had originally planned on saying: "For being happy." Her brain kicked into over drive and suddenly she had an answer that sounded less confrontational.

"...For hurting you."

Ana was about to walk away again, so long was the pause, but then the voice came out again.

"When?"

"This morning."

"...But you asked me to make a snowman this morning."

"Yep. It hurt you."

Really, how did Anna know this all of a sudden? She couldn't understand the logic that had let her arrive at this answer, but she knew it was true.

She had hurt Elsa by being happy somehow.

"I hurt you because I was happy...without you."

The last part wasn't planned, but again, once she said it, she was certain it was true. It wasn't that Elsa wanted Anna to be unhappy...she wanted to be happy _with her_.

There was another pause. Behind the locked door, Elsa was panting. Around her, the snow swirled. She was afraid...so, so very afraid. The snow swirled faster. When Anna had said sorry, and the reason why, the snow had slowed. There was something, some magic...some effect...in that sentence. She couldn't pin it down...but she wanted to...she so wanted too.

She heard a creak, and hurriedly spoke out, afraid Anna would walk away again.

"Anna?"

A pause.

"Yes Elsa?"

"...Do..."

Do? Do like the musical note? But wasn't that Doe? She was pretty sure it was Doe. Doe Re Me Fah So La Te...oh hey look at that, the last one was Do. But didn't it sound the same anyway? Errgh...Elsa was talking again.

"I...Anna?"

"Yes Elsa?"

"This is hard."

"...Let me in."

"...I can't."

The silence stretched. Anna sat down, her back braced against the door. She felt the door vibrate ans was almost certain Elsa had just done the same. Perhaps she could at least see what dress the other was wearing? No. She didn't feel **that** desperate.

"Why?"

"...I'll hurt you if I do...and I'm not sure I'll get the chance to apologize like you did."

"Why? Do you have fangs or magical evil potions or eat sisters for supper?"

Through the door, Anna could bet she felt a smile. She could bet...but she wouldn't ever know who would win that bet because Elsa never opened her darn door.

"None of those."

"Are you a fire breathing dragon?"

"No."

"A wolf?"

"No."

"Err...a ghost?"

"No Anna."

"Well are you a witch?"

There was silence. Anna blinked. This conversation was all a joke, but her sister had stopped talking.

"Elsa...?"

"..."

"I'll go now."

"No!"

Anna, who was half way up and half down, sat down again hard. Her sister's voice came out of the door again.

"Anna, are you okay?"

"Ow. Sure. My butt's not though."

"...I'm a witch."

"Ooookay. They think I'm the one who's crazy. All I do is talk to Joan and the guys. You think you're a witch. Do you have green skin?"

"No Anna."

Anna was happy to hear the deadpan tone of that voice. Good, she thought Anna was being ridiculous. Perfect prime to cheer someone up. Anna grinned.

"Well okay then! All the wicked witches have green skin! You're all good. Open up?"

More silence...then...

"I promise I will...but not today."

"You can't stay in there until Coronation day you know."

More silence.

"That's ages away."  
"My fifteenth is coming soon. So it's not."

"...One day...before Coronation day."

"Okie then, we can build a snowman then!"

Anna pushed herself off the floor and rubber her behind. What was it with her ans snowmen...? The thought just suddenly hit her. About it, but she shrugged. It was the only thing she remembered about her childhood that really got Elsa to smile. Snow and ice. As she walked away however, a thought struck her, and she grumbled.

"With my luck, it'll be the very day before Coronation day. At one minute to midnight."

"At least she'd be telling the truth then. Can't argue with that one!"

"Shut up Christopher."

Anna walked past the picture of a man propping his elbow on a musket and he laughed hard and long, making it ring in her ears as she walked along the hallway, took the first left, and disappeared.

_**+~E~+**_

_For all three of you, I hope it will be interesting. This alternate version will probably be included in this story, it's one of the reasons I have such a large fluctuation of word count estimates for this story. XD. _

_I break off a little bit here in this chapter as you can see, so essentially we have reach the point of no return. Events from now on officially will begin to begin to look different, it will be small at first, much like the branches of a young tree._

_But they will begin to separate~._

_I do think this is the longest chapter on this story so far, but if could be just because of the notes. I have no time to count though~._

_~ C F Winchester._


	10. Lost

_For anyone who cares to vote, I have a rate me poll up.  
Review responses are at the bottom!_

_I really am sorry, followers of Bonds Under Ocean Waves, but the little time I have, Sanity grabbed. It caught me..._

_I really have to say, Sanity is an oddball. It's a rather strange tool since I strip so much from it's chapters. It's a completely different writing style than my usual.  
_

_Speaking of...by this stories general standards, this chapter is almost sinfully long. By my standards, sinfully short, and by the standards of Bonds, just average._

_~ C F Winchester._

_**Sanity**_

_**Chapter Nine:**** Lost.**_

Elsa stood up. Almost immediately she slid down again, rather more slowly than she could have.

In truth, she didn't actually want to sit back down, and was resisting the slow slide all the way down...but her body wouldn't obey her.

It wanted to be floored.

Once she was sitting against her door, it took all her energy to remain upright...

She failed.

Her head hit the snow on the ground with a soft plop that did nothing to improve her sudden jellyfish like state. She lay there, in the snow, watching the flakes re-settle on her eye lashes.

Snow.  
Ice.  
Hail.  
Sleet.  
Blowing Blizzards.  
Freezing Mists.

Burning Cold.

Wintry Air.

_Oooooh Shut up already!_

Tossing aside the thoughts in her head, Elsa found her feet and forced her body to get up on all fours before pushing herself up to sit on the balls of her feet. Snow was everywhere. She almost flopped face down in the snow again, only this time,her elbow and hand served as a prop tool for her head.

She half sat, half lay there in contemplation, or at least tried to, but her elbow was slipping in snow, and just like that she was on the floor splayed out again.

_Sometimes I really hate the snow...scratch that._

_Most of the time._

She watched the flakes stir in the air. They had such a beauty that she was almost sick of watching.

How can you love something so much...

Yet also hate it with all your heart?

Elsa decided that trying to get up was pointless. She instead contemplated what had put her in this state in the first place.

She had almost opened her door.

Her hand had been on the knob. It had been unlocked. She had half turned the knob...and in a blast of fear it had become solid ice.

She watched it now. It had not melted, but stayed in the frigid air, a laughing reminder as to how little control she had.

Control.

Hah.

She had zero.

She continued to stare at the frozen door, and told herself instantly that she would never come out.

Only for coronation day. No sooner...

Or Later.

Lost in her fear, the snow blanketed all in it.

o~1~o

In her sleep, Anna felt a pressure in her head. It was like someone was tapping her shoulder, or brushing her ears with light fingers. It wasn't a hard pressure.

It was the kind of pressure you feel when you know someone is behind you without looking.

More of a sense.

Anna tried in vain to continue sleeping, but it was useless. She opened her eyes to an empty room. Yet the nagging feeling continued. Something was off in the castle. Something wasn't right. She quietly slipped out of bed and tossed on a drape shawl over her night clothes. Who was going to see her this late anyway?

She looked for her shoes, gave up and figured she's get no scolding for walking the castle with her slippers. This was her house anyway, how much dirtier was the castle from her room?

Honestly.

A lot of habits and upbringing rules didn't bear up to scrutiny once looked at...

That wasn't important however. This feeling was.

Slipper clad feet hurried to the door and then opened it quietly, making sure to stop it before it creaked. She lithely strode to the end of the hall.

"Out so late at night milady?"

"Something is off Cuthbert. You think you can ask around for me?"

She addressed the picture at the end of her hallway, a burly man in soldiers' dress who was painted from the waist up. His silver mustache was impressive, which made up fr his slightly balding head. His hard blue eyes scoped Anna before answering.

"Certainly Milady. I'll have someone report back to you. Double time."

"It's not urgent. It's just a feeling."

She strode off down the halls. It was only about five minutes later that she got a feeling again to go up.

Another three minutes and she felt to go up again, and her confusion grew as she threw herself up the steps, trusting instinct or whatever this was.

There was absolutely nothing up all the way to the top except the parapets and bell...

"There is something up there. I can't tell what, but something. Be careful Anna."

The message came from a suit of armor standing at attention by a staircase going up. Anna nodded grimly to him before ascending the steps. Something...

Quite suddenly, Anna lost her footing. She grabbed the banister to steady herself before continuing on...

It was only once she got up tot he top did she realize why.

o~2~o

Why had she come out here?

What madness had possessed her to come out?

Ice crystals sprung up on every footprint as Elsa walked along barefoot through an unfamiliar castle.

Why hadn't she at least brought SHOES?

She cursed the crazy that had seized her in her insomnia and dragged her form bed to fulfill a promise that she had months to fulfill at a more sane hour with more sane footwear. Or better yet, never fulfill at all.

Her sanity reclaimed her mind and she beat it back along the corridor to her room and tried to lock her door...but with growing horror she realized her body was instead grabbing her shoes and putting them definitively on her feet. She then slipped out the room again and walked off along the corridor.

No no no! She had to get back!

She paused. Her will struggled with itself. She had to admit, nothing was controlling her, it was herself she was struggling with. She actually had fulfilled the promise now. She had come out. She had opened the door. She could go back in now...

But she knew that was feeble, and she laughed at herself. What proof could she give to Anna of that?

She paused again for a new horror that made snow fall on the carpets. She had no idea where she was. She hadn't been in this castle in years. It was so...big. So huge. It was scary...too scary. Snow flew faster from her as she tried to master the fear of such an open space.

Up.

She had to go up. The castle, most buildings in fact, got smaller at the top. She could find her way around doing that...and she needed to get somewhere with protective walls.

This was too big.

Much too big.

Open space...

The snow roared.

Elsa fled.

Lost among the silently watching corridors, Elsa fled.

o~3~o

The entire staircase up here was covered in ice.

Ice.

Sure it was near winter, but ice INSIDE?

Her speed in climbing the rest of the stairs led her to the bell tower, where she was met with the sight of...

Someone. A woman.

She was beautiful...

and snow danced around her.

She stared out into the open air with a kind of longing etched into her body that Anna could sympathize with. She wanted to get out of here too. The moon beckoned her with sweet words and even sweeter, soft light, which played on the woman's near platinum blonde hair...

As suddenly as she had come up here, just so suddenly did Anna realize that she kinda didn't come here to stare at this woman. She hadn't ever seen her before...at least she was sure she hadn't...but she can't see her face so howwasshesuppossedtoknowandthewomanhadsnowaroundherlikeablanketandblizzardsothiswasnotnormal...

Slow down.

Deep Breath.

Cough because you took it too deep and then stumble on the ice like a fool because you coughed and fall because you stumbled like a fool on the ice that you stumbled on from coughing because you took too deep a breath of cold air.

Great.

The snow whipped into a frenzy and the woman whipped about too to stare at Anna. The two met eyes. A nudge pushed on the back of Anna's brain and a word slipped into her mouth.

"...Elsa...?"

The two stared at each other some more. Again, Anna felt a nudge as her mind pushed her onwards.

_Oookay...Seems like I have to make the second move too...again._

"...Elsa? You're Elsa aren't you? Well...uhh...wow. Err...you turned out nicely...not that you shouldn't have I mean I didn't expect you to be ugly but I mean err I haven't see you in years and I didn't know what to expect and umm...hi."

She didn't mention the swirling snow, though she noticed it calmed a little. Just for a small bit. Then it returned full force when Elsa realized that, duh...this was Anna.

Next to her.

With no protective door or gloves in the way.

Looking right at her snow.

Shit.

It was like as if her sister had found the chamber pot and proceeded to paint the walls with it's contents.

"Anna."

_Great. All she says is one word. This is like trying to fill a bucket that has no bottom. Well. Two can play this game!_

"Elsa."

_Ha!_

"..."

_Nothing. Crap. New plan!_

Anna opened her mouth again and then promptly slipped when she took a step forwards, but her hand was still on the rail, so she ended up just hanging on it. It was a brilliant display for a first impression. Nicely done.

Not.

Elsa blinked and then swallowed a lump in her throat.

"You...err...oh no..."

Her eyes had zeroed in on the patch of white hair that Anna had adorning her head. Oh god...oh god no. She thought she had forgotten that mark, had tried to forget it to get the strength to come out here...but there it was plain as day, the reminder of why she should never be near Anna.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have come here. I'll see you coronation day."

She took a few steps, but Anna, displaying a quick ability to adapt to the ice, caught her hand. Elsa froze.

_Conceal. Conceal. Conceal. Concealconcealconcealconcealdon'tfeeldon'tfeelshe'llfreezeshe'llfreezeit'llbemyfault!Again!_

"Anna...let go...please."

"No."

Snow drifted around them both now...but soon, very soon, it would be storming. Elsa couldn't hold it back, it was coming soon...she grit her teeth and set her feet down against it mentally. Anna however, broke the concentration.

"Is this what you meant?"

Thrown off kilter by the question, she looked at Anna in confusion.

"What you meant by being a witch?"

_Oh._ _Of course. She hates them just as I do. Maybe now she'll stop asking for snowmen...thank god._

_...Who am I kidding...this will make me miserable._

"Yes. I'm sorry, it's repulsive. I'll go."

She tired to pull from Anna's grip, but the other was surprisingly strong.

"Anna, if you don't let go I'll freeze you solid."

"You wouldn't."

Elsa tried in vain to break free. Anna's face set and she let go, but moved to block the steps.

" I would! I can't control it! I can't stop it! It controls me!"

"How have you tried?"

The question, again, threw Elsa for a loop, and just as the snow had been gathering from her tirade about it controlling her, it settled again as Elsa's confusion took over. Anna noted the change. In the back of her head, she heard the far off voice of a suit of armor.

"Mayhaps it's how she feels?"

_How she feels huh?_

"What?"

Anna repeated her question. Elsa's face screwed up.

"By trying to conceal it, trying to push it away, wearing gloves usually works, or it did for a while. I-"

"Hide away in your room so it doesn't hurt anybody...besides you."

The snow swirled down a little as Elsa looked at Anna in surprise. Anna smiled a wide smile and let go of the steps to come closer. She almost fell again but turned fall into a spin on the ice. Elsa watched in some small horror as Anna made fun with this snow curse...didn't she know that she could be frozen into a block of ice any second?

Of course not. She had her memories removed.

"It's stupid to bottle up your feelings Elsa, or hide what you are~."

Elsa watched as Anna slid around her.

"...What?"

"Look around you."

Elsa obeyed, but she didn't see the point, until she realized the snow was still falling lightly. She stared at it in just as much confusion as she had Anna. It had been about to burst out of her just moment before but now...

"The more you try to hide who you are, the more who you are wants to come out~."

Elsa almost wanted to grab Anna and shake her for the singsong, carefree tone of voice in the face of such danger...but instead he watched her own snow falling lightly on the floor. Anna stopped sliding by grabbing the banister as it came back her way. She piped up again.

"You know, I missed you."

The snow stayed calm.

"We used to play so much together, all the time!"

It swirled a little faster.

_Said the wrong thing._

"Elsa, what do you say when you are trying to stop it?"

The snow banked a little. Confusion. Then...it sped up as she spoke the line.

"Conceal it, don't feel it."

"Huh. Well that's dumb."

Again the snow banked, and Elsa looked at Anna in dumb shock. It made her burst out laughing. The snow swirled a tiny bit lower. She recovered enough to sober after a short while.

"That's hiding who you are Elsa. The more you hide, the more it fights to come out. Let it go."

The snow slowed again. Anna smiled.

"You know, all the servants think I'm crazy?"

Elsa looked at her questioningly. She happily pointed to a picture up here. It was empty of any people, but depicted a green landscape with what she assumed was a farmhouse in the distance. The grass looked enticing as it swayed in the gentle breeze the painter had depicted.

"Of course, there is no one on there, but I talk to them. The pictures with people in them. They are company like no one else after all. Not like I'm going to get a response form this one though...not a soul in here. Beautiful scenery though isn't it?"

Elsa's face shadowed. She watched as Anna examined the picture with growing apprehension. Her mind dredged up a singsong Anna, a girl she could only hear, pleading for her to come out the door, for she thought that...

"Some company is overdue, I've started talking to the pictures on the walls!"

She had later said that no, they don't say anything back, but that's why she needs someone who does!

"These pictures...say things back to you?"

Anna looked up from her examination, oblivious because Elsa's tone was so different from the servants. She didn't hear the usual open fear; she was hearing guilt, full guilt and a taste of veiled fear.

"Well of course not!"

Elsa's apprehension dropped.

"This picture has no one in it silly! I mean, if it were Joan or Cuthbert sure but not these!"

Her fear rose up again, and the snow swirled a little faster. Anna took no notice as she turned around and looked at her.

"My point it there's no point hiding it. If I do people will just find out anyway since it will fight to come out. If I'm honest with myself, it doesn't matter! Why try to hide it and make myself miserable as well as other people?"

Elsa was lost. Her parents had tried. Tried so hard to let her control and conceal her powers...and they had instead blossoms and forced their way through. Anna was mad. Mad because of her...but despite being mad...she had to admit, there was some power in her words...something that kept her snow at bay. She cautiously let her fear drop and tried to take a deep breath.

She couldn't let go of her fear.

"Tag!"

_What?_

Elsa felt the tap, an then saw Anna racing about the room like a loose chicken without a head, following no discernible pattern. Elsa blinked. What nonsense was this now? She watched Anna race about for half a minute, carefree, before the girl stopped short near an ice sheet on the floor and looked at her. Her face fell.

"Don't tell me you forgot how to play..."

"Play? This was a game?"

Anna slapped a hand to her forehead and groaned.

"You're supposed to chase me Elsa! I tagged you! You're supposed to chase me to tag me back! Unless I'm on base though...base is a safe place...If you tag me, I have to chase you."

Elsa blinked. She was lost. Anna sighed.

"What do you play when you're bored Elsa?"

Elsa looked off to the side and didn't answer. Anna rolled her eyes.

"Oh come on, you can't tell me that you have a library in that room of yours. You HAVE to get bored staring at the same four walls all day."

Elsa's answer came in a small voice.

"I play Chess."

"With who?"

"Myself."

Most. Lonely. Thing.. Ever. Anna almost cried for it. Heck if she ever needed to play chess, she's go to Arthur, he was a master. Even SHE had chess buddy.

"...Play with me."

"I can't."

"Why?"

"The pieces are made of ice."

"Oooh! Sounds fun!"

"I'm serious Anna!"

Anna smiled.

"So am I. Play with me."

"You'll be frozen solid."

Anna only smiled all the wider.

"If that's your way of saying you'll beat me think again~."

"I'm serious-"

Anna ran up to her and before Elsa could react, her finger was over her mouth. She had nothing to stop, no time to prepare.

"I've lasted this long haven't I?

The snow, unnoticed by the both of them, stopped for just a single moment.

_**+~E~+**_

_Not snowman Curry, They are gonna build snowmen! Then have them play bughouse with them. XD._

_If you can't wait Scholar, then don't! XD._

"_I'm only 14" I do plan on continuing this. I do like to base logic and all forces, no matter how ugly, in my stories. I feel it ups the realism._

_Shtoops, I occasionally like to read the elsanna fics, but some go a bit far. I'm unsure if I will use the mechanism here, but you will see them act as a family unit._

_Double, I believe that for all Anna's supposed "insanity" she is the most aware person in this story. XD._

_~ C F Winchester._


	11. Understanding

_For anyone who cares to vote, I have a rate me poll up.  
Review responses are at the bottom!_

_...This chapter sat in my documents for about a week. I had thought I had submitted it. ._. _

_Work is indeed killing meh. =S._

_Softly._

_But still killing._

_Next chapter will most likely begin to explore more into these two bonding, but for now, all I can do is play games, but don't worry._

_This chapter has relevance for later on._

_~ C F Winchester._

_**Sanity**_

_**Chapter Ten:**** Understanding.**_

Elsa moved a pawn directly in front of the opposing knight.

Anna slid one of her own pawns forwards. Elsa took it with the same pawn. Anna smiled and then took the pawn with a bishop.

"Check."

Elsa frowned. She moved her King back a space. Anna's knight snaked around and took one of her pawns.

"Check."

Her frown deepening, Elsa scanned the board before moving her king back again. Anna tilted her head slightly in thought. Elsa watched her in interest. Anna moved her bishop again.

"Check."

She had to admit, once you got past the rather eccentric amount of energy and almost sinfully cheery demeanor that wrapped around her, Anna was rather...

Elsa's eyes swept the board again.

...dangerous.

"Are you sure this isn't checkmate?"

"Nope, you have a few moves."

Elsa looked again as the snow fell lightly around them. Her eyes lit upon her rook. But even as her hand reached for it, Anna's eyes flashed. Elsa withdrew her hand, thinking again. If she moved her pawn...but then Anna would just take it. She could try taking Anna's rook with her own...but that was pointless, it would be a useless check, as the king could just take her piece. Her eyes fell on her bishop.

She shifted it to take Anna's.

Anna's knight immediately was moved and took her bishop.

Elsa, seeing nothing to take, moved her king to what she hoped was a safer place. Anna's smile hitched a degree higher, and Elsa immediately felt that her move wasn't quite so safe anymore. The snow intensified a hair.

"I'm castling."

"Wait, what?"

Elsa looked up at her in confusion, but the next second, as Anna opened her mouth, Elsa remembered.

"Wait, don't tell me. I remember...who taught you how to play Anna? Did...did father...?"

Anna's face didn't move, but her answer was a tad stiffer than ordinary. She shook her head.

"No. Arthur did."

"Arthur is...?"

Her smile returned in a small way.

"One of my friends. He lives on the second floor, near the library."

Elsa swallowed. That again. A picture taught her chess now. Her stomach squirmed uncomfortably.

"Father taught me."

"Check."

Elsa looked down at the board again. Anna's castle had moved her rook in range of her king. She moved her king to a safer spot.

Anna instantly took Elsa's rook with her remaining bishop. Elsa waited, but the word "check" didn't come. She had grown so accustomed to hearing it lately. She took a breath in small relief and moved to take a pawn with her knight.

Around her the snow settled into tiny flakes. Anna watched them out of the corner of her eye as she picked up her own knight and moved it in a weird angle. Elsa's eyes widened as her knight was taken.

"I didn't see that."

"I know."

Elsa looked at her remaining arsenal. A bishop, rook and knight each, plus a queen and five pawns.

Elsa swallowed and decided now was the time to use her authority. She moved her queen to take a pawn. This move put Anna's bishop and one of her rooks in trouble.

Anna had one bishop, two rooks, two knights and three pawns plus her queen

Anna moved a pawn to block one pathway, her bishop. Elsa moved to take the rook. A small smile grew on her face.

...and then it disappeared as she watched a pawn take her queen.

"...Damn."

"Should have taken the pawn."

"The rook looked so much more rewarding."

Anna's grin widened into feral proportions.

"Sweet in the mouth, bitter out the other end~. Taking my pawn would have put me in check."

Elsa's eyes swept the area and affirmed that with a grimace.

"...and I so badly wanted to say it too."

She moved a pawn to take Anna's guilty pawn.

Anna took her bishop with a her rook. Her hand held up two fingers.

"I know I know. I only have a knight and bishop left with all these pawns."

Anna shook her head.

"I meant we can decide this with best two out of three. 'Cides. Your king can still take pieces."

Elsa looked over the board with a light grumble.

"One space at a time..."

She moved to take another pawn of Anna's. Anna only had one pawn left...

Anna's bishop jumped and took Elsa's.

Elsa used her last knight and took the bishop, seeing too late that...

"Oh crap."

Anna's rook took the knight.

"Check."

One rook and two knights against a bunch of pawns. Now Anna leaned back and looked up at the roof.

"Ugh...I'll just have to move this-"

"If you move that pawn to block me you'll lose."

"Huh?"

Anna pointed to the pawn.

"You moved that and I'll just take it, then none of your pawns will be able to reach my rook, since they can't go back. They have to move forwards. They won't be able to protect the king at all. Your king will have to go it alone. I can move my knights in and retreat my rook, so any pawns that move up will get taken... meanwhile; my last pawn gets to the other side of the board."

Her finger traced the ice board.

"...Plus..."

She pointed to her queen.

"This girl can move off her throne."

"Then what would you do?"

Her finger dropped to the snow, tracing lines off to the side of the board.

"I'd move my king. It's the only other option. If that was my side, I'd try to bait you into bringing out your queen and trap her into getting taken by a pawn, while my king played hooky with the knights and rook. If my pawns got to the other side, I'd get my queen back."

She sighed as she stopped tracing demonstrative lines in the snow. She smiled.

"It makes no sense to ask me though, since that is what I would do, and I'm your opponent, so if I can tell you so easy..."

"You can prepare to stop me just as easy."

Elsa took her pointer finger and placed it against her thumb before pinging her king and knocking it down. Anna sighed.

"Aww. Don't give up Elsa."

Elsa abolished the board and pieces, and then drew them back up into a fresh game. Anna smiled at the sight.

"I have got to learn how to do that."

Elsa made a face.

"No, you don't. It's a terrible ability. I can't control it."

Anna gave her a small smile.

"That's because you never try to. You try to hide it, not control it. It's perfectly harmless right now isn't it?"

Elsa hazarded a glance upwards.

"...Maybe...for now."

She looked back to the chessboard and assigned herself the first move. Her clouded ice pieces marched forwards against Anna's clear glass like ones, but all the while, she was still thinking, at the end, when the two left the game, Elsa still had gone no further than to continue to think that same line.

_Maybe for now..._

_But soon._

o~1~o

Elsa sighed. She tried again with no success. Her snow continued to fall. Though she had to admit, the snow wasn't blizzard like today...but her frustration at being unable to stop it made the snow rather heavy.

She needed Anna.

Anna was the one who could stop it.

The one who spoke to pictures.

She shivered involuntarily. She had promised to come out again when they parted the night before.

Anna had managed to do something in one night that her parents had failed to do in over fourteen years. What she had failed to do in nearly eighteen.

She had controlled it. Her words made it ebb and flow.

...and that was scary.

She thought again to the bouncing, racing red head with the ever present smile and the endless mind for chatter. Chatter directed at inanimate objects.

Anna was insane.

A chess piece moved and took a queen in her mind.

Insane yes.

Stupid? Unable? Unaware?

No.

Elsa looked outside. It was getting late again.

Soon she'd have to step outside again...

The thought of that task daunted her to no end.

No, she wouldn't.

She promised she'd come out.

She didn't say it had to be the very next day.

_**+~E~+**_

_I've never played Silent Hill before to be honest. XD._

_If I don't differentiate between he and she, or if you see a he where a she should be, it is most likely a typo. _

_C F Winchester._


	12. Unhinged

_For anyone who cares to vote, I have a rate me poll up.  
Review responses are at the bottom!_

_I don't own Frozen or any of it's affiliates, copyrights or other named rights._

_Since I have been here so long, I typically think over my stories a lot before I write them down. Thus I can usually have deep seated reasons for why I do anything at all. Even stupid little details no one will remember or care about have whole back stories and mini arcs attached to them, and when I deploy them, more than once have I seen a review telling me they completely forgot about that, and asking me just how much planning I do before hand._

_Truth be told, whenever I start a story, I usually know exactly how it will end, how long it should be, what events will be in the main arcs...right at that starting point. _

_Sanity was different because I had no plan for it save to explore Anna's mental state from a different angle and with a more brutal brush than a children's musical would usually dare._

_I do know how the story will end now though. :D_

_This chapter sat, complete, for days before I uploaded it. I just wanted to put something more, but never had the time._

_~ C F Winchester._

_**Sanity**_

_**Chapter Eleven: ****Unhinged?**_

"What will you do?"

"I don't know Joan. I don't. If I could...I would take it from her."

Anna felt a smirk slide into the voice of Joan as the woman leaned against her frame.

"So you care for her again I see."

Anna made a face halfway between grimace and frown.

"I always did. I just got tired of asking every day if she wanted to play. I figured if she didn't want to, she didn't want to. She's going to be a queen soon, she should be able to know what she wants."

"I hear a but coming."

Anna smiled at that.

"Of course you do. Well...BUT...I never expected her to be a walking blizzard. It's..."

"Scary?"

"No. It's fun, I love it...but she doesn't. She tries to hide it..."

Joan sighed as a servant turned the corner and began to walk up the corridor.

"She hides it and so it continues to fall."

"Yes."

Anna took no heed of the maid. They never paid her a look besides one that said they wanted to get as far away as possible. I mean seriously...let's say, for just one moment, that she WAS actually crazy, that Joan here was nothing but a reflection of her long gone mind.

"Joan, I wish I could help her more...she's just so...sad inside. She made a face when she saw my hair like if she had seen a ghost."

Being a little...unhinged was fun then. Besides...it's not like it was contagious!

Speaking of contagious, the maid coughed a little, as if to announce herself to Anna. Anna turned to look at her with a smile. The maid flinched as if the smile were a gateway to a knife or sword in the back.

"Errr...Your grace..."

Sheesh. No time for this...

"Maybe it was something about your hair? You have a patch of white in it you never explained to me you know."

Anna looked back to Joan, ignoring the stuttering maid.

"My white patch? I was born with it...I think."

"You think?"

Anna scrunched up her face in thought, then scratched the back of her head absently.

"I think. I can't really remember clearly that far back...but I might not have had it when I was a tot...

"Your grace?"

Anna turned back with the same smile, a little more forced this time.

"How may I help you?"

The maid seemed to be a nervous rabbit and she seemed to be string too tight to even jump properly. She gave a little hop that probably would have sent her flying twelve feet in the air had she been relaxed enough. She stammered some more.

"I...I need...I need to dust..that picture."

"Oh bother. I hate when they dust me. Thy always leave it flying about to cling to the oddest places, then you have to come and wipe me off...well Anna. Something about your head bothers her, and your white patch is all I can think of. Did she seem disgusted?"

"No. Scared."

The maid jumped again. Anna shook her head.

"Not you miss."

She only dumbly nodded and again tried to get her point across. Anna sighed.

"I'll talk to you later Joan. It seems you have an appointment with a duster."

"Just don't do anything rash Anna."

"I won't!"

Rushing off, she left the maid looking apprehensively at her retreating back. The maid looked to the picture with nervous eyes.

Same unmoving picture of Joan of Arc, standing there regally with a haughty look in her eyes. She hastily dusted the picture, almost swearing that the pictures face scowled for the briefest of moments as she dusted it's nose.

She dusted it again.

Then she went off in a hurry to rest.

For a good while.

Pictures did not scowl of their own will.

She needed rest.

Her grace was unhinged.

She was not going to catch the same disease.

+~-1-~+

Laughter.

In the night.

An empty castle, bare and yet full of sleeping souls.

Save for two.

Who laughed.

Elsa panted as she cautiously took a peek around a corner of a hallway. She couldn't run any more.

So she hid.

Tag was a game that often seemed to overlap with Hide and Seek, as far as Elsa could tell.

Why was it so fun to be chased?

To hide from the seeker?

What was it that elicited such a visceral and pure response?

Elsa's ears caught a strain of sound, and then a soft step. She bolted from her spot, and then a flash of red was seen from the side of her eye.

"Caught you!"

"Not yet!"

Eventually she'd get caught. Anna was faster. She knew the castle...and besides...

Sometimes, snow would still fall on the ground.

Speaking of knowing the castle...

"I'm lost."

Elsa sat on the floor, drawn up and small.

The snow was falling again, and Anna came in close. Elsa tried to beat her back, but Anna came right up to her and put a hand on her shoulder.

"I don't even know my own home any more. I don't know where I am...how can I rule a kingdom when I can't even navigate my own house?"

The snow fell harder.

Anna smiled.

"With help."

"What?"

Elsa looked up at her, aghast. Anna knelt down to her.

"You don't rule a kingdom by yourself. Don't you have a court?"

Elsa's eyes expanded a little.

"You know, with jesters! With an annoying bishop that bugs you with stuff and has an upturned nose!"

Despite herself, Elsa smiled. The snow slowed.

"You're not lost."

Elsa's smile turned a little downwards.

"I am."

"No you're not."

"Why?"

Anna tilted her head to the side. The white band of her hair caught in the small light around them and flashed, it seemed to draw all light from around them to glow. Her whole head seemed to do that. Elsa wondered if it was just the property of her sister's head, or if hair usually seemed to glow if it was bright colored in low light.

"Because I'm not lost, and you're with me!"

The snow stopped in shock. The head tilted a mite further.

"We're together, so you can never be lost with me!"

That sentence stilled Elsa. How could she say something so...frivolous?

You can never be lost with me.

Really?

"This way!"

Really?

_**+~E~+**_

I usually rise at or before 6 AM too.

_**HEADS UP THIS IS A LONG RESPONSE.**_

_**Yes shtoops, I wrote you a whole counter argument.**_

_**(You know, I now see Double's review and it practically sums it up, this response.)**_

_Shtoops, I understood you fully. However, let me stop you there, for there are a few things that you are a bit off on. _

_First off, while Chess is considered an intellectuals game, being more intelligent does not equate to being better at it. XD._

_Anna has had the same amount of time as Elsa to do whatever she liked, being alone for that same amount of time, and she had the added bonus of being able to move about freely. Elsa often kept herself locked up in her room, and as mentioned in an earlier chapter, she cannot possibly have an entire library in there. Also, uncontrollable ice and snow plus paper books? _

_Equals a no no. _

_Now don't get me wrong, the movie evidences Elsa being intelligent at least to the average to above average degree, she mentioned the word "fractals" in her "Let it Go" rendition, which is not an average term to be used lightly..._

_...but the need to visualize a building and use ice as a building substance for it is not the same as drawing up a complicated plan an architect would. Much of her building is raw power and imagination, not pure mathematics and physics, her powers allow her to bend those rules a little, like her spiraling staircases of ice that more or less can defy gravity at some points. It's raw power and visualization that pushes her on._

"_A wizard did it" comes to mind as a writing trope for this situation. _

_To besides, with a good eye, mathematics to build an object can be supplemented and sometimes thrown out the window._

_As for mental discipline, it has been shown multiple times that Elsa's powers are not handled in such a way. The control for her power is not logic and force, but emotion, in sorcery this is called "Heart" magic. Her powers can run wild without her if need be, as shown, while a power that needed mental force would not manifest until tremendous focus was shown. _

_Now, about Anna. Most people do this, and it upsets me some. _

_(This isn't directed at you by the way, it's simply written to show a point, therefore the following may not fully apply to you.)_

_There is no evidence in the movie that shows Anna is unintelligent. She is naive due to her upbringing, but in no way is she worthy of the constant looking down that she receives. She is not a helpless baby who needs to be watched lest she crawl out a window._

_Anna is energetic and clumsy, she's plucky. She has a sarcastic streak, but she's caring at heart, and unfailingly loyal to a cause she dedicates herself to. Stubborn. _

_In this story I plan to explore this very thoroughly. XD. _

_Now, about the chess. _

_First off, Elsa has been playing by herself. (Depressing! =S)_

_If you believe Anna, she has had a partner. (A picture of a man named Arthur.) _

_Now, lets assume that Arthur is a figment of imagination. He;s still a different persona with a different strategy, essentially an alter ego that plays like a new person. Anna is stimulated by an actual opponent, and can grow. The same holds true if Arthur is a real person. He still can stimulate Anna to grow._

_Elsa plays against herself provides little growth. The same strategy played on both sides only lets you defend against the same kind of opponent. _

_Elsa's character profile is as follows: Introverted. Reactive. Defensive. Passive, Calculating-Openly._

_Anna's char profile is as thus: Extroverted, Active, Probing, Active. Calulating-Covertly._

_In chess, the game works by placing both players in a situation they have to analyze and then respond to. In this game, Anna is the one who's making the situations. She's the active one, the attacker, the one who initiates. Elsa reacts to whatever situation Anna makes. _

_In essence, play-style wise, Elsa is defending against attack. That's her main objective. Protect. _

_Anna is the Shepard, she is creating these situations in which Elsa has to get out of, and Elsa is always choosing to follow her around and defend her turf first; thus Anna can probe, attack, and bait her. In chess, (or any board game really...) You have to be willing to give and take. _

_Anna, the active one; is the most willing, personality wise, to adapt and change, to dare and to try. The ever curious and eager beaver. Against a stoic opponent like Elsa, Anna can run circles around her. _

_A stone pillar will fall, reeds can bend. XD_

_Even if we disregard all of this and simply look at intelligence level, Anna has a large amount of observational experience that can balance out the scale between the stale and stunted life Elsa has grown with. _

_In the modern world, without powers; Anna would be street smart and Elsa, book smart, and when it comes to being worldly...You can't just be book smart anymore. You need to be able to communicate and read not only people but a situations._

_Now I know._

_The move shows Anna falling pretty hard for the "fake" Hans. Understand though. Anna was completely new to that realm of life. Even Elsa, though she says Anna can't marry a person she just met, has no good follow up arguments. She herself is new to it, and she can only deal with it by withdrawing inward. _

_Neither girl bore up well there, and I think if Hans had tried Elsa with a different brush, he might have had her fall too...if Anna were the one with powers and throne, Elsa probably would have fallen hard. XD_

_**TL:DR: Anna has many factors going for her that allow her to be a good logical choice for being able to play circles around Elsa.**_

_I've seen Frozen once. Just once. For the birthday of a child I was babysitting for a friend of mine. She had wanted to watch it, so I watched it with her since her parents were busy that night. About the best way I could spend that night if you ask me, because she won't remember it as just that._

_Neither will I for that matter..._

_C F Winchester._


	13. Switch

_For anyone who cares to vote, I have a rate me poll up.  
Review responses are at the bottom!_

_I don't own Frozen or any of it's affiliates, copyrights or other named rights._

_~ C F Winchester._

_**Sanity**_

_**Chapter Twelve:**** Switch**_

After a time of playing chess, tag, exploring the castle and it's grounds and whatever else came to their minds...Elsa had a new name for her baby sister, but one she never said to her face.

In her head, she called Anna... The Switch.

With her the snow was slow, and at times could even, miraculously...stop.

But let Anna leave her back in her room for the rest of the night and into the day, and the snow would creep back. The thoughts of her coronation, the people out there that could be frozen...it all came back.

The fear. The noise. The ice.

Then, when the night came again and the soft padding on the floor announced the coming, Elsa braced herself, tried to marshal her power, anything to prevent her sister from receiving a blast of frostbite the moment she stepped foot into the room...

...and all for nothing. Inexplicably the snow would stop as soon as the freckled face stuck it's red headed self through the door.

The switch had been flipped.

...and what a switch it was. Elsa didn't know where she got the power from. As far as she could tell, they both ate the same amount of the same quality food, at the same time...

Yet, Anna was a practical ball of pure energy. A wonderfully insane one.

Oh yes, she spoke to pictures. Suits of armor too as she passed them by. Occasionally she's smile with a mad glint in her eyes or burst out laughing before telling her what some alleged person had just told her.

No doubt in context whatever the comment was would be funny...but the premise of where it came from made Elsa's grin a bit forced.

Yes, Anna was worryingly...different.

Unhinged.

Her attention was razor sharp when focused on you, and thus Elsa learned to expect to lose when she played Chess...but to also expect a good time and ready advice...but...

She's get this far-away look in her eyes and then grin, or frown, out of turn. Hearing something Elsa could not...the voices of the frames around them.

Without fail, the snow would pitter or patter slightly at these moments, and the unwelcome thoughts would assault her.

This was her fault...this person was broken.

Somewhere along the lines, while Elsa continued to be miserable and hide, Anna's misery had broken her mind.

That was the problem Elsa saw.

Anna had no fear.

She bounded about rafters, slid down banisters, under furniture and even once through a window...

Granted; they were on the first floor.

But a princess jumping through a window?

Actions beneath her station.

Her fear had been broken the same time her mind snapped...

and that was the problem.

The more time Elsa spent with her, the more she saw that Anna was in no way stupid. No one with her special tone of humor could be...but she was a bust that someone had taken and smashed against

the ground.

Anna had attempted to keep them in one cohesive whole...

Elsa had no idea which piece went where...

But she was certain that Anna had been put back together wrong.

"Elsa!"

The call of her name snapped Elsa out of her train of thought, and she watched as Anna showed her some beautiful purple flowers on a creeping vine. Her face was no lit up however. It was perplexed. Elsa tilted her head at the expression.

"What's wrong?"

Anna shook her head.

"I know these flowers. I see them a lot."

"...and? What's wrong?"

Anna frowned at the flowers.

"They only open right at the crack of dawn, and close by the time the middle of the day."

Elsa looked at them again. They shifted in the cool air...and the moon glinted off their petals. It was her turn to frown.

"You sure it's the same flower?"

"Yes. Look, over here, on the other side of this archway...the same plant but-"

Elsa saw the point.

"All the flowers on this side are closed. I see."

Only the flowers near the castle wall were open.

Now what could that mean?

_**+~E~+**_

_**Another long response. Sheesh. XD**_

_**Guys...it's getting to the point I spend more time responding to reviews than I do writing the story. I could just message people, but my inbox is a mess too...Oh well~.**_

_**And again, Shtoops takes the cake~.**_

_Shtoops, I understand your points, but alas, again I must disagree! XD. I do however, agree with you that simply saying: "It's magic." is essentially a lazy and unimaginative way to do things, and I was stating it last time as an example of writing trope for cannon purposes, but to disregard magic as bull? That I disagree on. _

_The way I view magic is rather different than Disney, and I believe it has a place in the world._

_Last time I explained magic in "cannon" as to say, what Disney probably essentially had in mind when they brought us Elsa. However, if you want to play it on the full battlefield..._

_Then I agree about Cryokenesis, but disagree in your implementation of it, as while it doesn't break Elsa's character, can stretch her a bit. It's an overtly technological explanation to a simple problem, that still relies upon a point Elsa does not have. Control. _

_Your theory requires a tremendous amount of control. Allow me to suggest something else instead. Something that I myself believe. (Notice I don't say better idea, but simply different. XD.) Since you are a scientist, let's approach this scientifically. XD. Let's start with what we know._

_For the most part, Elsa's switch with her power is emotional, the switch being fear and love._

_It's original intent and purpose was out of her control._

_These powers can operate in ways Elsa is unaware of, such as making Olaf alive, fulfilling desires she did not originally even know or remember she had._

_Her powers, are thus based in her unconscious mind. _

_Now this opens up a whole new realm of possibility, and it's rather elegant._

_Elsa does not need to be gifted with unprecedented intelligence, or game breaking ability brain wise, because the truth is, while humans are conscious, we never use more than about 10-20% of our brain at once. The rest is more or less idle unless subconscious or unconscious is called upon, like in sleep or during a trance, or when our senses otherwise leave us and the body acts of it's own accord. During these times, our brain explodes into action, sometimes even becoming fully stimulated all at once._

_People have been able to experience full lifetimes of full detail dreams in which they can account for even the most minute detail, and yet have only slept for an hour ,or, more relevantly..._

_Been able to solve problems they were unable to during regular conscious operation. _

_In this case and scenario, a large portion of her ability is dormant and uncontrolled. She can tap into her abilities and use them, but does not have the full knowledge of the extent of them, as she did not during her time back in Arendelle when the storm was still brewing._

_In a way, it is very much like the hierarchy of a kingdom. The small yet controlling branch of society represents the conscious mind, giving out orders to the larger populace of the unconscious, who together possess the skills the conscious alone does not have. _

_The conscious may issue orders and know the basic principle what is being asked, but all of the details and underground workings that must be done for the action to be performed are handled by the unconscious._

_The brilliant thing about it is that this does not in any way negatively affect how much potential power Elsa has. It actually increases her potential because her conscious is not bogged down by countless little details that would make it rather unwieldy to use._

_Elsa again does not have to be so computer like. She can be humanistic and still achieve her feats. XD._

_Oh, by the way, at the moment...Quantum computers are essentially busts. They are not perfected, and can do absolutely nothing better than a classic machine can. Quantum machines are based on the improbability principle, meaning they are using the curious effect of trying to pinpoint the exact location of a particle and having the equation, no matter how many times and how many ways it is done, be wrong. In more loose terms, Schrödinger's cat phenomena is the basic principle used. _

_Classic computers based on binary logic can only be yes or no, zero or one. The quantum computer attempts to harness the maybe. The "both" scenario. It's nowhere near perfection and at the moment is only speaking in the language of potential and not actual proven result. So much of the actual science is still blowing in the wind. _

_NOW._

_Steve, are you certain I'm a part of that merry band? I don't see Elsa being bipolar to any degree at all. She's quite stable actually. The only time I can see in this entire story where you may have obtained an impression of quick shifts in emotion might be last chapter, and that is my fault due to how I write this story._

_You are perhaps talking about how Elsa was being chased by Anna in Tag one moment" then being on the floor curled up "the next" because she's lost. _

_This is my fault. I did not show you the time that passed between these two moments. _

_I write this story with a very loose and skeleton like pen that requires readers to make inferences and read between the empty lines. The only warning of this being a different time was "Speaking of knowing the castle..." and "Eventually she'd get caught..."_

_I would usually explain myself more; but this story is written deliberately vague. _

_Examining every other part of my story does not give me the impression of Elsa showing any symptoms of a bipolar. Every emotion she has had has been there for a reason and reaction to the environment, and she has been stable shifting between them._

_The first scene in her room with the snow; Stable, if depressed._

_The second scene where she leaves her room; Stable, she's afraid of the new area and unsure of herself._

_The third where she meets up with Anna; Stable, if wary. Shocked by the end._

_The fourth during chess; Stable and calm, but a tad bit frustrated._

_The fifth in her room again; Elsa is again on a stable mood; frustrated and towards the end; apprehensive._

_Last chapter was the only time she has shifted at all really. _

_You must understand this is her own home. A home she used to play in all the time as a young girl. She is also expected to be a Queen in a short while, of an entire kingdom who will look to HER if they get lost._

_Her feeling of being lost then is thus rather a bring down. She's tired from tag and the day is coming soon, and she doesn't know where she is or how to get to somewhere she does know. The castle that was once home is huge and rather unfriendly. I'd expect Elsa, as the person she is currently, to withdraw into herself._

_If the scene confuses others, I'll go back and rewrite it XD._

_Anna has displayed far more quick bounding changes than she has, but I notice you have not brought her out because her sanity is the one this story is about in the first place. You expect her to be different, so you ignore her attitude._

_Now..._

_Hello Zach_

_I didn't mean to implicate Anna being lost easy as a child, but the feeling I was going for was similar. What those last lines meant are interpretable, but what I more or less meant was:_

_Elsa feels that it is rather ironic that a person who has essentially lost their mind would be her pathfinder and that the person would claim Elsa could never be lost with her. The blind is leading the blind. Also, Elsa feels slightly put out. She is the older sibling, yet here she is being the one who is lost while Anna is the one who is the authority. It's also a stab at Anna's nature. A carefree devil running about is not the one who is usually privy to where they would be, as they usually don't care. Finally..._

_Elsa is not exactly sure if her sister is insane anymore, what with how often she has shown simple, if flavorful; views in logic and sense. She's beginning to question not the mind, but the body._

_I'd say more but that would ruin a plot arc I have planned so zipped fingers for me. XD _

_...Oh poo, I had to unzip um to continue responses. Poo._

_Hello Lelo. I suppose you could call me a person of all trades. I used to love to explore anything I could, and still nurse a soft spot for it._

_KC Pendragon as of yet, I can't answer that question. XD._

_Exactly so Double. I've already explored some of her impulsiveness already, and it's not the last of it._

_Maybe Curry, maybe. XD._

_C F Winchester._


	14. Twenty

_For anyone who cares to vote, I have a rate me poll up.  
Review responses are at the bottom!_

_I don't own Frozen or any of it's affiliates, copyrights or other named rights._

_~ C F Winchester._

_**Sanity**_

_**Chapter Thirteen**_**:**** Twenty.**

Anna danced.

At least, her mind was, and she had no idea why.

Times like these she was uncertain where she actually was.

Was she actually dancing about in the gardens in the full moon?

Or was she in her room staring at this book in her hands, not even seeing the pages for the petals that curled out of the corner of her eyes?

She looked about. Flowers, vines, leaves and petals, they danced in the moonlight all around her.

Yet looking down, she was certain that this book in her hands was lit by the light of day.

She heard the voices of people, whispering things.

Different volumes.

Different realities.

Different stages of life.

She swore the dead was, at this very moment, speaking to her.

They called dire warnings. Be careful. Beware. Take Care, Do not stare...

The eye that stares is the eye that bleeds moonlight and runs along the ground dancing quickly beating vines running swinging dancing...

and this made no sense anymore.

Did anything ever make sense?

What was making sense anyway?

Be careful...this time the whisper was not from the dead, but bold and strong, the voice of Joan...or was Joan one of the dead?

_Anna..._

Joan wasn't dead, she saw her but an hour ago. Or was it a life ago?

_Anna!_

Her name was no mirror for her soul. Something in her was reaching, calling.

She knew.

Oh she knew and it frightened her!

Anna!

Anna knew. Knew pictures did not talk. But they did! They spoke to her with voices stronger than that of even her own sister.

Was she really mad?

Or was it worse...

ANNA!

Worse than she even thought?

Perhaps the pictures WERE the real people! Perhaps Anna had gone so far down that her mind saw real people as pictures on the wall, and every one she spoke too, her sister, the maids, they were the fake ones, the figment of her imagination that had taken over her eyes and mind and was made so real that ti threatened the real and true.

**ANNA!**

Was Elsa simply a monster her mind had made up?

No!

**A-N-N-A!**

Anna awoke to Joan screaming in her ears. Anna rubbed her eyes and fixed the woman with a sleepy, half lidded look designed to be haughty, but with her current state of hair and face, only managed to look bleary. Anna's eyes roved Joan's form before realizing, with a muted thought of surprise, that Joan actually HAD a form.

Joan wasn't in her picture.

Well. She WAS but she was also standing next to it. Bold and real and solid to the touch. She was warm, but firm. There was little softness in that calloused hand. Anna blinked. She had been dreaming...

What was it about again?

She had forgotten.

She vaguely remembered it was frightening.

She also vaguely remembered it being disturbing and important.

Anna took Joan in stride. Joan was solid, dependable, believable. She'd always be there.

"Hello Joan."

The woman fixed her with a impatient look.

"Anna. You were twisting in that couch like a fish in a net."

"Hmm..I don't remember why. The dream was bad but I can't remember it."

Joan scoffed at the bald toned explanation.

"Bad would be an understatement Anna. But come. I think your teachers will want you soon. Some lesson or other. Etiquette I believe."

Anna looked at the outstretched hand in surprise.

"You would go with me?"

Joan looked at her oddly.

"Of course I would. Since when do I not? You just never appreciated how until now."

Anna smiled. Joan. Dependable, Solid. Reliable. Now she could go with her too. Anna strode hand in hand...and watched as others came along for the ride, until a veritable crowd was accompanying her tot he lesson. Anna had a court, and it was in session...traveling with her...

Through all hours of the day. Not even the maids and their muttering, their side along glances...could ruin this day.

Finally, she was no longer alone.

She had her court.

She had Elsa.

It was all right.

Underneath her fingers, the book Anna held to grew vines and flowers along it's spine, and sprung to life with a thousand rose bushes along the single vine of a glory.

It was always going to be alright.

+-~1~-+

Anna was mad, and was becoming madder still.

Elsa was a recluse, locked up in a cage.

Arendelle was doomed.

That was the word from servant to servant. Until it filtered down to the longest serving pair. Kai and Gerda, to two faithful, good people who had been with this family since days of old.

Both of them sighed as they set the dining hall for one, and then began to place a second plate unto a tray for a servant to carry.

Elsa would, of course, eat in her room, as Always.

Always and forever.

Sometimes Gerda honestly thought Anna might make a better ruler.

Certainly, the girl was grieving and lonely, but she firmly believed that she still was not mad.

She was an active and rambunctious girl, she was vivacious.

Elsa never showed her face. Never spoke. Took her lessons with teachers sworn to silence.

"Kai. Please, could you take up her tray? I don't think my knees are up to it today."

Truth be told there was absolutely nothing wrong with her knees.

She simply just did not want to face that broken door with the closed soul behind it...

...and she had used those specific words rather purposely.

Kai sighed and reached out for the tray.

"Excuse me."

Gerda looked up from her work and paused.

There was Anna, as always, on time but looking a mess.

As per usual.

However...she was hanging off a girl slightly older than her in an overtly familiar way.

The girl looked terrified.

Not of Anna, but of _her;_ of Gerda.

Why?

Gerda focused on Anna.

"Your Grace...?"

Anna sniggered at the title, and the implication.

"Gerda! Put Elsa's plate down please, can't you see she's here? She's here! I got her out! Don't scare her off though. It took a long time! I might not see her till coronation day if you scare her off!"

Kai slowed his progress in fixing the table cloth and paused to look. Gerda's eyes swept the young woman. She had to admit. Much of the time, when she carried food up, knocked on the door, and left. She hardly ever saw it open...not hardly...

Never.

Yet...

She vaguely remembered.

A young blond girl with sparkling large eyes. The face was older but still...it could be...

"Your Highness?"

This from Kai. Neither of them had any idea how much, how close...Elsa was to the edge. The only thing that kept her fear from boiling over, from the snow that she held tight in check...the only thing...

Was a pair of hands.

Anna's hands on her shoulders. The switch was powerful enough to even work in company...

But Anna could not be there when Elsa took the coronation oath. She had to be free and unhindered. Free willed and strong. There was an Anna now.

...But not then.

Elsa subconsciously gulped, but Anna steered her to the single set up seat and sat her down. Her smile faltered for a second, then she nodded to herself before reaching out and straightening out a kinked hem on Elsa's sleeve. She smiled to Gerda.

"Could you please...?"

"Of course your grace."

They both fled the area to set up another spot to serve the sisters together.

Anna was mad. Her sister a recluse.

But the mad had managed to pull the recluse out of her room, and the recluse seemed to absorb much of Anna's madness.

Perhaps...together; Arendelle wasn't doomed at all.

But one wondered. Anna seemed to be the instigator, the one stressing Elsa to move out and stretch, to expand and grow.

Would Anna be able to heal a broken sister before she herself snapped clean...

...into unsolvable pieces?

Outside the hall, Joan sighed.

_**+~E~+**_

_Well, KC you might be a bit confused by what I meant by "usage" You have described storage there and you're actually incorrect there. The brain throws nothing out. It remembers anything it stores. It's just not as readily accessible as more "important" memories. _

_Shtoops. Allow me to say I think we read the same times article. But. I stand by my ground. The companies that bought those computers are buying possibility, and the article itself says so. Like I mentioned before they are showing possibility and nothing more, science is unsure and "hard to explain" the companies are buying products based on the hope that it will pay off. It's an investment. _

_As for the brain usage "myth" allow me to also say I have heard this argument before, and allow me to say I still believe in the usage percentage, but that I explained myself poorly. I said last time that the rest was "idle" this was too simple of a word. _

_It's not idle, it is being used, but not by "you" per se. It's being used by your involuntary, the unconscious and subconscious body functions control. Using my previous example, again the higher conscious is simply ordering about the rest of the brain to follow through it's functions, but there are other underlying actions going on the higher thought processes are unaware/unconcerned about. _

_So. Yes, the brain is being used more than "10-20%" but WE are most likely not using more than that at any given time. We as in our upper conscious. _

_As for going for the "cooler" choice in a "Frozen" fandom...it's up to you. I like to make things realistic as possible, as well as plausible logic wise and continuity wise if not always purely scientific. For me, cooler is not always best. But hey, you're not me. XD._

_Curry, it's a "yesnomaybe" I drop little clues every now and again._

_I'm glad you think it's brilliant Safi._

_It was short last time, wasn't it Lelo...I'm sorry._

_C F Winchester._


	15. Intermission

_For anyone who cares to vote, I have a rate me poll up.  
Review responses are at the bottom!_

_I don't own Frozen or any of it's affiliates, copyrights or other named rights._

_THIS IS NOT A CHAPTER OF SANITY._

_I've been busy looking over notes and videos, for I have a few licenses for work that I need to renew, so I wanted to make sure I was sharp. As such my writing has slacked. However...I can't spend an entire day just "studying" you can't study effectively without breaks to wring your brain out._

_So, I decided to write this as an intermission. This has nothing to do with the sanity storyline at all, and is not part of it's time-line, but it could be if you want to look at this as a continuity._

_However, it is not._

_I'm not certain if it was my fault, but I see a bunch of stories cropping up now about Anna's mental state now, all from slightly unkempt mentality to flat out "bat-shit insanity"_

_If this is my fault and I opened a can of worms all over Frozen's image, I apologize in advance._

_It won't stop me continuing though. No use crying over spilled milk._

_This is an attempt at the typical fluff and humor. _

_Although, in hindsight it's neither funny nor really fluffy, so I don't know what it is._

_Sorry, no "cake" here though. Maybe next time. (I'm actually willing to try that for an intermission as I have zero experience with that sort of thing,('Cept for like one chapter in my Negima fan-fiction, but that hardly qualifies, as it's more...violent fluff...If there is such a thing...XD)...but not now._

_This is also written closer to my "usual" style, so it has a different feel to Sanity._

_Officially speaking this intermission takes place after the events in Frozen, on the original time line. _

_It just hit me over the head. Like a frying pan of doom. I didn't turn into a poached egg though._

_~ C F Winchester._

_**Sanity~Intermission.**_

_**Intermission-The Drunken Reindeer..**_

Elsa took a deep breath of the fresh, wintry air, letting her eyes close. The sky was clear, the sun was out, and all was right with the world. She was about to even consider lying down right there in the snow and revel in it's fresh and clean feel, wetness forgotten. Or she would have...

If a snowball hadn't barreled out of nowhere and smacked her dead center in her face. Elsa blinked and reached up to rub the snow from her nose, but two more sailed and bowled her over. She came up with two crystalline orbs of milky white for eyes.

Shaking her head violently, she frowned and studied the landscape...had to be...

She whipped around at the sound of a whistle, and received a face full of more snow. Laughter rang out across the field as Elsa bent down and scooped a large pile of snow into her arms. She ducked another snowball and skittered away to take refuge behind a boulder.

If Kristoph wanted to play that way...

She was sure he had thrown the ball. Anna was engaged else where with Olaf and Marshmallow. Not that you could make much headway against two snowmen in a snowball fight, but Elsa had to admit that without using any power, Anna would have made Elsa into a snow-person with a hail of snowballs before she could even throw a single one.

It was winter in Arendelle, and Elsa reveled in a time when her power and the weather agreed. Being surrounded by natural snow seemed to diminish her own abilities, at least in her head it did. Elsa packed the snow very carefully, looking for a flaw in her little pile of snowballs.

She could make a whole pile in a manner of seconds if she wanted to...but where was the fun in that? Elsa found that, when she could, making something out of snow with her hands was way more fun. She peeked above her boulder and did a quick scan of the area.

"Aha!"

A snowball flew her way, but she returned fire, and the two balls met in midair, scattering snow everywhere. Elsa threw three more in that general direction before scooping up her pile and vaulting from behind her cover to diver behind a tree. Distant "oof" told her that she had at least scored one hit.

Elsa took a quick look from behind her tree to see Kristoph staggering around. He had been hiding behind a tree as well, and the snowball's had snapped twigs on their way to him. One had caught him on his nose and the other one crumbled apart on his head, giving him twig antlers.

Elsa ducked back behind her tree, holding back a laugh. He looked the picture of his favorite bar, "The Drunken Reindeer."

She only wished Anna could see.

_Hmm, and to think, I didn't even want to come here in the first place._

_~o~_

"_Elsa~"_

_Sighing, the blonde looked up from her trade agreements to ask Anna if she could please, please not interrupt her work but she paused with her quill pen in the air, ink hanging precariously from it's tip. It grew minutely as the time passe,d but Elsa ignored it in comparison to Anna._

_This wasn't the first time Anna had tried to pry Elsa from the table. Once Anna had even attempted to juggle the items on Elsa's desk._

_Let's just say that Anna's dress will probably never be the same. _

_This time, Anna seemed to have done it right. In one hand was the bane of both sisters, a box of chocolates, and they were fresh. The smell of them had already permeated the room and Elsa had no idea how she had not picked up on them earlier. The other hand had a plate, and on it, food._

_Elsa had not had any dinner, and it was pretty much supper time. On cue, her stomach traitorously groaned. Anna smiled a small victory. Elsa frowned._

"_Anna...I need to finish these agreements."_

_Anna tilted her head to look at them and then smiled. It was a mischievous one that Elsa had learned to both love and slightly fear._

"_Do they absolutely NEED your signature?"_

_Rolling her eyes, Elsa huffed at the silly question._

"_Yes?"_

_Anna watched as a drop of ink splattered un-noticed by Elsa unto the paper. She waggled her eyebrows a little before swiping a quill of her own._

"_Or do they simply need someone of the royal family? I could sign a few~."_

_Elsa blinked. She hadn't actually considered using Anna for any of this before. Still, it wasn't going to help her any._

"_I need to review them first."_

_Anna rolled her eyes and plopped down the plate on a free spot and then the box, just tantalizingly out of reach. She knelt down on her knees and propped her arms over the edge of the desk and looked at Elsa eye to eye._

"_I can read too you know."_

_Yes, yes she could but did Elsa trust her judgment? Anna had heart, but she was a bit impulsive..._

"_Oh come on..."_

_She watched Anna blankly as she continued to think. Ana snapped her fingers at her, and got no response._

"_I know what you're thinking~...and I'm not sure I appreciate it."_

_She gained a mischievous smile when Elsa still didn't respond, and scooted around to Elsa's chair, and then, with on fluid movement, stuck hot hands from the plate under her arms. The reaction was instant; Elsa shot up like a rocket with a yelp that upset her current agreement and sent her quill flying. Her ink would have gone soaring too, if not for the forethought of Anna, who had set it down on a nearby table._

_Anna definitively dipped her quill into the bottle and scribbled on the paper, signing her name on the document. Elsa, eyes wide from the attack, looked at Anna's other hand, which was still under her arm._

"_Uhm...Anna...?"_

_Anna placed the quill back in the bottle and spun Elsa around, and pulled her along._

"_You need a vacation! Come on, build a snowman or something, it's snowing outside!"_

_Elsa tried in vain to fight against Anna, but Anna, half hugging and half dragging Elsa, pulled her from the room._

_They didn't go outside that day. However, Elsa did get to rest and eat properly for the first time in...well, forever?_

_~o~ _

A distant roar caught her attention, and she turned to see...Marshallow. Chasing Sven. Who apparently had Olaf's carrot again. It was a typical joke the reindeer did to Olaf, and she guessed that was what Olaf was yelling as he waddled after the larger snowman, Anna hot on both their heels, scooping up the waddling snowman as she passed.

Obviously; Marshmallow didn't find it funny.

As she watched, Sven leapt over a log that Marshmallow didn't see until too late.

You say timber for a falling tree...what about a falling Snowman?

Avalanche?

Marshmallow was sent literally flying as his massive figure snapped forwards and turned into a roll...

Only, he wasn't stopping.

And he was headed this way.

Eyes widening, Elsa rose her hands and did the first thing that came to her mind. The clearing's snow heaved and roiled as she added her own to the mix and when she stopped, she felt like slapping herself.

She had made a cliff. How was this supposed to help Sven?

The reindeer shot up the incline, running full speed as the snowman began rolling after him, only slowing slightly as they climbed. Sven tried to stop, but the snowman's bulk wouldn't let him. He leapt over the edge and into the air, high above Elsa and Kristoph, who had managed to get his bearings in time to see a flying reindeer zoom over his head.

"Sven!"

The sun gleamed off Sven's coat as he sailed in the air, carrot still in mouth and looking the perfect picture of majesty...as majestic as a scruffy reindeer can look that is.

Uslessly running towards Elsa, Krisoph failed to stop short in time and crashed into Anna, who had slid and covered him in snow before he plowed into her, sending Olaf flying up into the air in pieces just as he hailed him.

"Hi Kristoph!"

At least her sister had brakes.

"Oh look! I can see the castle from here!"

Elsa rolled her eyes and watched helplessly as Sven flew and Olaf sailed. She watched the reindeer smash into the higher branches of some trees as Olaf came back down.

"Hey, watch out for my butt!"

Elsa took a hasty step back and Olaf missed breaking apart on her head.

Speaking of heads, she caught his.

"Hi! I'm Ola-waaaait...you know that already. Hi Elsa! Say have you seen my hands?"

A creaking brought Elsa's attention to her ledge, which crashed down against the teetering weight of Marshmallow, sending him, still in a ball, tumbling to crash into the snow below, covering them all in snow.

Elsa was left blinking and holding a mound.

Olaf's body waddled by.

"Man; I've put on some weight. Say, does my butt look big?"

Elsa couldn't help it. She burst out laughing.

In front of her, Anna popped up from the snow, spluttering. Kristoph popped up more slowly, dusting himself off just in time to get a face full of snow from when Anna shook herself like a dog.

Elsa shook her head. She found Olaf's body, put his head on it, and then turned around to snickering. It was Kristoph. He was staring at her and trying not to laugh. She frowned a little. Hands on her hips, she adopted a haughty look.

"What, may I ask, is so funny?"

Kristoph tried to adopt a straight face, but was failing miserably. He adopted a mock bow.

"Nothing at all your Majesty."

He cracked a smile as Elsa looked more severe. Frowning even more deeply, she narrowed her eyes.

Anna, who had been looking in the direction of the mound that was Marshmallow, turned around and stopped short. She blinked.

"Uhm...Elsa?"

"In a moment Anna. Kristoph? What is so funny?"

Anna's mouth turned into a half frown.

"Elsa."

Sighing, she looked to Anna.

"What is it Anna?"

"Hey, there they are!"

Elsa whipped around to see Olaf looking at her.

"Oh, do you need my arms Elsa? They do look good up there."

Suddenly Elsa realized why Kristoph was cracking his ribs trying not to laugh. She reached up just as the arms adopted a "surprised" gesture that made her hair stand up like a shaggy mop puppet. Kristoph, unable to hold it in, belted out a noteworthy amount of gaffaws at what he could only describe as Elsa'a new "hairy" familiar.

Unwinding Olaf's arms from her hair turned out to be a job that needed Anna's help, for every gesture they made tangled it further into her blonde locks. Kristoph was no help; obviously. He had a different objective, that being trying to extract a very unhappy tree from an very stuck Sven. The carrot that had started this whole thing sat, dejected, a few feet from where it had flown from the Reindeer's mouth.

Marshmallow needed some fixing up but no harm was really done to him.

Though Sven never stole Olaf's carrot again.

At least not in the larger snowman's presence.

_**+~E~+**_

_shtoops, I bow to that. I always did enjoy debate. Such a good way to find truth._

_Curry, you should have seen the dream sequence before it was edited. It was so much longer and twisted, but I cut it due to the fact I felt it might be thought to be disturbing to some. It wasn't anything disgusting, but it certainly was a brain trip. XD._

_C F Winchester._


	16. Surprise

_For anyone who cares to vote, I have a rate me poll up.  
Review responses are at the bottom!_

_I don't own Frozen or any of it's affiliates, copyrights or other named rights._

_~ C F Winchester._

_**Sanity**_

_**Chapter Fourteen: **_**Surprise?**

Joan shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Next to her, Arthur waved an impatient hand.

"Not now, not now. Can't you see I'm about to checkmate her?"

Joan huffed at this statement. It was practically nonsensical by now. Anna let a small smile play on her face before she moved a piece. Arthur simply sighed.

"Oh well. There goes that statement. I swear. You playing with your sister has brought you to a different level entirely. It's not even that the girl is exemplary, it's that she exposed you to a different line of thought."

His only response from her was a small hum of acknowledgment. Arthur rolled his eyes and impatiently tapped his finger against the board. What should he do, what should he do.

"Ugh. You didn't even say Check."

Anna grinned at that.

"I figured you knew. Elsa hates it when I say Check."

Arthur moved his rook.

"Well Check yourself."

"Ahh! There you are Miss Anna."

Anna looked up into the face of a maid. She blinked. She hadn't heard the woman come up. Before she could speak however, she was being bowed too. It irked her some.

"I'm sorry to pull you away from a task that obviously has allowed your dresses to remain clean, but you have been requested to...join...a lesson."

Blinking again, Anna was momentarily confused.

"I do not have a lesson for now."

The maid, knowing that Anna was usually an informal type, paused at the rigidity of the statement.

"Yes miss. However, you are being called to your sister's room by her instructor, on her behalf. She wishes that you join her session."

Anna rose an eyebrow at that.

Ever since Anna had coaxed Elsa down to eat with her once in the dining room, Elsa had made small, little forays during the day time. She didn't always eat in the hall, but had done so three times, including the first time, in the past two weeks. About once a week more or less. Elsa had also did one, single lesson of hers, one on law and governing principals, in the library, to the surprise of her long time instructor.

The man was mute, so he couldn't vocally express surprise, but his face was expressive enough.

It suddenly struck Anna that a good third or more of Elsa's instructors were mute. She wondered if that was a tool used to help keep her ability secret...but no, as far as she could tell the man's tongue was intact, and wasn't that how older kingdoms silenced them? Cut out their tongue?

Eww.

Anna slid off her chair and turned back to the board. One last...

She pinged over her king with a well placed forefinger.

"Oh ho, what is this now?"

"I lose."

The maid, obviously not seeing the whole picture tried to cheer Anna up, oblivious to the fact she needed no cheering up in the first place.

"Oh my miss, but you also win. You were playing against yourself weren't you?"

Anna simply smiled. She folded her hands behind her back and bit back a response to the ignorance of the maid. Instead, she walked off in front of her, making the older sprint to catch up. She said something or other about showing Anna where to go.

She didn't need help on that front.

She grinned as she passed a suit of armor, which turned to watch her with interest.

"Which way Selvan?"

A clink to the side of the helm, the man was thinking. Then a nod.

"First floor, receiving room."

Eyes brightening, she took off with full speed, dresses swirling about her and a put out maid hot on her tail in pursuit blathering something or other about going the wrong way.

Ha, please. Selvan and the gang always knew where people went.

It was his job as a guard to watch and well...guard.

Anna beat it to the receiving room triple time, pausing at a staircase only to shake her head and beat down the impulse to use the banister as a ramp, opting for feet on wings instead as she sailed down the flight rather like a bullet from a gun.

Her first instinct was to turn left at the end of the flight, and she took it. It wasn't strictly on the way, but the impulse was rather strong. She ducked under the arms of another maid carrying some platter or other, but her tail wasn't so lucky.

Where Anna had dipped like an otter and avoided the man, the maid had plowed straight into him, sending his cargo everywhere. A sweet smell teased Anna's nose but she didn't stop to see what chaos had been wrought.

A sweet smell?

Hmm...

Anna had another fleeting idea to zip to the open window and peek out, but there wasn't time. She zoomed past it instead, and zipped around a corner, breaking into a near baseball slide to avoid another man with what appeared to be a pitcher of something, what?

No idea.

No time to look anyway!

Anna rounded another corner and stopped with her hand on the knob of the receiving room. She looked about and then slipped in quietly, straightening herself and preparing to face a stern instructor nose to nose, but instead she was greeted with an empty room.

It was decorated to suit for a party. A table had a few platters on it and a pitcher of some substance Anna didn't feel she had the time to inspect. The sweet smell assailed her nose again, only this time she pinned it down to some form of cake.

She blinked.

Oh.

Right.

...Was today her birthday?

...ooooh Oh ho ho~

Selvan you absolute DEVIL. He knew.

He knew and he wanted Anna to surprise them instead of vice versa.

Clever man, she should save him some cake.

Anna made a face. What now?

Clearly, she could either go back out, zoom about a bit more and then find Elsa and pretend to be surprised when everyone brought her here.

Or she could have a bit of fun and hide here until they came in waiting for _**her**_~...

He he...but no.

Anna could almost hear Joan berate her for that. She was a princess for Peter's sake.

She had values and standards and the "hiding to surprise your own surprisers when they look about for you worried sick" bit wasn't very classy.

She sighed.

She straightened her dress again.

...and she walked out of the room and began to walk away from it. She stopped at another suit of armor.

His one was Marius.

"Marius, do you know where Elsa is? Not what she's planning, just where SHE is. I already saw the set up."

She looked around to make sure there were no visible maids as Marius laughed some.

"Like the set up do you? Selvan spoiled you he did."

"Yeah well, about that, I kinda want to make it right so if you could please..."

A maid turned the corner with a set of goblets on a platter. She almost froze when she saw Anna, but slowly put her foot down and began to walk forwards. Anna knew she wanted to go into the room, and knew she also didn't want Anna peeking to see the surprise party.

Too bad it was a useless precaution by now. Marius chuckled.

"Marius..."

"Oh fine. Last I heard she was worrying away a hole in the floor above my head."

Anna looked up.

"You mean her room?"

"Aye. Girl's bound to fall through one of these days."

Anna blinked a few times rapidly, then looked back at him in a mock stern way as the Maid slowly began to walk past the door Anna knew she desperately needed to go into due to Elsa's obvious order.

"Respect Marius. That is your future queen you are speaking of."

"Fair enough, fine. Then her royal majesty shall one day wear the floor so thin above my head that her elegant visage will fall right on top of my commoner head as she takes yet another elegant step routine in pacing."

She tried to scowl, she really did...

Yet, despite herself; Anna giggled at the image. She beat it away from the corridor, and she took a hazarded peep back once she dashed around the corner. Sure enough the maid beat a fast track back to the door and opened it.

Anna wasn't going to kid herself.

No, as she sped to Elsa's room, she knew that despite the great care and secrecy in setting up this party, the maids actually had little care or wish for her whether she knew about it or not. It was for Elsa's sake that they tolerated this party.

It was her bloodline's sake that they tolerated her at all.

Sure, she had some use now. She could break their soon to be queen out of her shell and support her.

Otherwise? She was the girl who spoke to pictures.

She was fine with that.

She was not fine with how they obviously felt and thought about it however.

Anna rose a fist and knocked three times on Elsa's door. A gasp and then a muffled sound like breaking glass pittering on something soft.

Icicles hitting the bed after they had shattered from shock.

Anna would bet anything that was what it was. Elsa was nervous.

"Elsa?"

The door opened. Oh how sweet that sound was.

It was open! It still amazed her. Elsa looked her up and down. She was obviously frazzled.

Anna was supposed to wait in the Library, and the instructor would come and then "decide" that a lesson on parliament procedure with two students instead of one required a more conversational atmosphere, and he would lead them to the receiving room...

Anne being here was a slight monkey wrench, but she guessed they could walk together down...

"Ahh...I didn't expect you so soon...I was just about to go to my lesson, it's supposed to be in the Library...I asked someone to bring you there so you could take it with me..."

Anna's eyes glinted knowingly, and Elsa felt a few snow flakes settle in her hair. That look. It was the look that Anna got when they played Chess and Elsa made a certain move.

Almost always after that look showed up, Anna would instantly make a move after Elsa. She had no hesitation, and it thus the look had become, to Elsa, Anna's: "Oh I knew you were going to do that...and that move is so wrong."

Almost always Elsa would find herself in check.

They were at Chess again, and Elsa knew she had just made the wrong move.

"Anna?"

"Selvan told me. Well, more like he told me you'd be in the receiving room...I'm sorry. But it's beautiful."

That again.

"Selvan? Another...picture?"

Anna detected the tone, something she was usually more or less oblivious to when it came to her sister. She noticed the flakes, still swirling about her head, and the icicles shattered on the bed.

(She knew it!)

"No Elsa."

Elsa looked up, some small hope there. Yet Anna shattered it with the next sentence.

"He's a suit of armor."

Broken.

Elsa looked down again, and kept her voice steady.

"I see."

Quite suddenly, she was in a hug. A tight one. Her eyes managed to catch a few strands of brilliant strawberry before they snapped forwards to see the whole head and body that was hugging her. Again, the snow stopped.

She didn't know what to do. She couldn't hug her back even if she wanted to.

Forget the fact her arms might not have moved from lack of will.

They literally could not since Anna had trapped them between the two of them.

"Thank you Elsa."

She settled for relaxing her posture some. Anna loosed her hold.

Elsa broke free.

"So. Happy Birthday?"

Anna gave a quirky smile.

"You do know it's next week, right?"

"Of course. However, if I had waited until then, it would have been impossible to surprise you...though it looks like even now it still is."

Anna resisted the urge to hug the girl again. Elsa wasn't as touchy feely as that. Instead, she settled for a mock hurt look.

"Oh come on. If I had not been told, you would have totally gotten me. I was still hung up on the thought you wanted to share a lesson. I mean, wow."

She couldn't help smiling at the thought. She struggled to continue to look "hurt" but abandoned the option when her grin only got wider.

Then she started to laugh.

It was infectious.

Not infectious enough to make her sister laugh too mind you.

But she smiled lightly.

...and Anna took notice.

It only made her laugh harder. She grabbed her hand and Elsa's smile faltered a little as she was dragged along.

Well more like it morphed into surprise.

"Come on, we can't be late to our own party~."

"Wh...wait a second- It's your party I just, err...I'm not even...I wasn't-!'

"Oh come on Elsa, you don't orchestrate a party and then not show up!"

Her free hand mimed a conductor's baton to enunciate the word "orchestrate". Elsa spluttering along behind her.

"I was going to show up but not like this-"

"Oh come on Elsa, you can't possibly think I'd want you to suffocate in a stuffy cocktail dress at a birthday party! It's not a political event! You haven't even opened the gates yet, and when we were kids we used to sleep together in our pajamas."

Her point being that she had seen Elsa in far worse than her current "home" wear, which was a simple, and understated, deep turquoise conservative number with a darker, ankle long skirt.

It flew around her shoes as she struggled to stay in time with Anna.

"Your dress is fine. I don't expect you to dance, and any other activity might mess up a fancy one."

Again, Anna's logic, when she wanted it to be, was surprisingly sound.

~1~

"She just made a straight beeline for the receiving room after stopping near a suit of armor Milady."

Elsa sighed. She looked back up at the maid before looking about to see if she could spot any strawberry red hair.

She saw none.

"Did she...speak...to it?"

The maid looked uncomfortable, but nodded.

"She asked it...no, I'm sorry...She spoke to the suit of armor saying: "Which way Selvan?" and before I knew it she was off like a loose cart horse trailing goods everywhere. She just ran straight down stairs and then to the left where I had an unfortunate collision with David trying to catch her. Agatha claims she saw her near the room when she was trying to go in there with cups."

"Aye your highness...she was speaking to another suit. Said something like: "Respect, Marius you should not speak of the queen so." Then she just took off running again, I suppose to find you."

Another sigh.

"Thank you. You may go."

They left.

Elsa clutched her goblet close to her as she stood on a balcony. She had needed air after having supper with the staff and her sister as a small, private party for Anna.

It was the first birthday she had celebrated "publicly" between the pair of them in nearly thirteen years.

HER birthday would be the true public affair. The coronation.

Her grip tightened on the goblet. It grew cold.

The Coronation. Think about it Elsa.

The liquid in it turned to ice.

Think...about...it...

Ice cemented her hand to the goblet, and it's frosty coating expanded down to the stone barrier her other hand was resting on. She grit her teeth and tried to stop it, but then the snow began to fall again. She sighed.

The coronation. How could she possibly stand in front of all those people? She'd freeze.

Literally.

Then there was Anna. Her body relaxed some as she pondered that puzzle. It made her almost laugh, how she found dealing with her mad sister, less frightening than simply standing in front of a bunch of people.

She hardly had to say anything! Just pick up the stupid scepter and it's stupid orb and stand there! Say hello to a few diplomats! Just hello and listen to them for a minute! She hardly had to speak!

Yet, yet, yet.. yet...something so much closer to home and harder to deal with was so much easier on the mind to think about.

Anna. This was not the first time Anna seemed to have a "supernatural" ability to tell when something was going on. Elsa herself knew Anna put stock in the thought that a picture and a suit of armor had told her when Elsa had come out her room for the first time, prompting the meeting between them near the towers.

Then Anna had claimed more than once during the night that a picture had warned her someone was coming, some maid off to a bathroom, to do laundry or some other night duty...and had been infallibly correct.

Elsa attributed those times to Anna's sharp ears. She didn't say it to her sister's face however ,but she believed that Anna simply could hear these people coming.

How Anna could make a beeline for her in the dead of night she could not explain.

Today, Anna might simply have picked up on some inherent difference in the atmosphere and snooped until she found the cause but...

She had been seen running in the halls, making a pure BEELINE for the receiving room after asking a suit of- no.

She spoke to a suit of armor.

She did not ask it anything.

Ice again froze her goblet to her hands.

Elsa lifted it, unawares, to her lips and met ice. She sighed.

"Everything I touch turns to ice. I am to be a Queen..."

She muttered the last bit under her breath.

"...but I already have a Midas touch."

Anna had been playing chess, so it wasn't like she had snuck there before hand.

Perhaps...

Elsa was struck by an idea.

Anna was very good at chess. Suppose that was an indicator for intelligence? If she was mad, her mind was still sharp...

any and all predictions and ideas she had her mind would attribute to some fictional character and then...

No.

It still did not explain finding her in the towers in the middle of the night.

Being woken up by a presence.

Unless she predicted her coming out of the room at the night time from her promise?

Could Anna have predicted her coming out at night to fulfill a promise made to come out?

Perhaps. Anna knew she had always been in her room.

Always alone.

Perhaps Anna thought she would be too cowardly to come out during the day, but too guilty not to come out at all, and it would eat her up before coronation day so she...pretended to sleep?

Then actually fell asleep and woke up in the middle of the night? Decided to try and stage a look out at her door?

Then maybe followed her icy foot prints?

No, she expressed surprise at those when she first saw them afterward.

Then she predicted Elsa would be afraid of such an open space?

Could she possibly be that able to read her?

Elsa shivered. Her mind brought up an image of knowing, sparkling eyes and a quirky mouth across the chessboard.

Oh yes. Anna could definitely read her well.

But that well?

If it was true, how does someone so intelligent fall insane anyway?

Was it because she was smart and locked up in a castle day in and night for years without the comfort of family that drove-

You know what...she was being stupid.

Honestly.

Had she been THINKING when she had thought that last bit?

OF COURSE THAT COULD DRIVE SOMEONE MAD.

Question was, had it?

Elsa had chosen her exile and fell into depression. Anna hadn't chosen it.

Sighing again, she once more rose the frozen goblet to her lips, and met ice again.

Stupid.

She had forgotten.

She left the balcony and chose to walk the halls.

It was night time.

She paused by a doorway when she heard a voice.

A voice she had been thinking about.

"Yes. I know. She thinks I'm crazy too."

It was Anna.

"I don't blame her at all. None of them can see you. The maids are afraid of me, they touch me with hands that are always just about to jump away. Like I'm contagious or something."

She nodded to something and touched the nose of a horse a man was astride.

"No...Elsa doesn't do that. She...is scared, but is trying not to be."

Of course, the man and horse were stone.

"What do you mean that makes no sense, of course it makes sense!"

Anna let out an exasperated groan.

"YOU might like to run or fight back, but I don't think Elsa picking up a sword and slashing me would fix the problem."

Her eyes rolled.

"YES I am the problem we are talking about here! Who did you think I was talking about? Selvan? Elsa doesn't even know Selvan."

Her eyes bugged somewhat and she almost gagged.

"You did not just suggest that, you perverted...HOW can Elsa and Selvan go out if she can't even SEE him for who he is? He's just a guard, and one she can't see for more than armor..."

Anna sighed.

"I swear this is a waste of time, I shoulda talked to Joan."

She looked up.

"Yes, because she's so much smarter than you are. I came to you because she assured me you could help with this."

She looked off to the side and Elsa only just managed to duck back behind the door frame. Anna watched as if a man were dismounting. Then her face morphed into exasperation and she walked off,, assuming to follow.

"You can't just tell me that then walk away! Hey!"

She sighed and then cast her eyes up to the ceiling. Her head shifted to the doorway and her face lifted.

"Joan!"

Elsa kept quiet in her spot.

"Yes, I know it's not right for me to yell at him...but he told me to just ignore you all. I can't do that...I promised you I wouldn't."

She turned around. Elsa assumed "Joan" had said something painful.

"That is true...but it wouldn't solve anything. I need them to see you, not have me simply ignore you."

She paused again and sighed.

"I know changing one person is easier than changing everyone else...but I don't want to lose you...and ignoring you won't help me."

Elsa suddenly felt rather terrible. Here she had been, trying to figure out how to "solve" or even...hide... her sister...and her sister had been doing the opposite.

Fixing Elsa...

Now she wanted to fix herself too, and apparently, so did Joan and her friends.

Was this her mind trying to tell her to heal?

Or was this still something else entirely?

Elsa wasn't sure anymore.

Was this Insanity?

Or Sanity?

_**+~E~+**_

_..._

_C F Winchester._


	17. Fire

_What I must say is this. I did not only have to deal with summer and it's prevalent theme of ruining the moment with things to do when I did feel like writing, It also strikes me with exhaustion when I do have the time to write, effectively making the time I do have to write worthless._

_It's stupid._

_Review responses are at the bottom!_

_I don't own Frozen or any of it's affiliates, copyrights or other named rights._

_~C.F Winchester._

_**Sanity**_

_**Chapter Fifteen:**** Fire**_

Elsa had to admit. She did...enjoy...her sister's company. Despite the mars on their conversations with some odd commentary on what this or that...inanimate object...has said, Anna was an engaging young woman with many facets of her own that Elsa enjoyed to explore.

Anna wasn't one for etiquette, and was a terrible dancer...

(But then again, so was she.)

...and while she hated to listen to lectures on law and procedure...

(Exit her attention span stage right please, no shoving.)

She did enjoy the whole dynamic of an idea. Particularly, an adventure, like a noble battle between two sides.

It was obvious that Anna had little touch on reality of how exactly losses in a war worked.

Her love of the strategical seemed to come with little care for losses.

Not of people...

Though she did have a heavier willing hand than Elsa...

It was supplies and equipment Anna was less careful of.

Anna was a lover of the "necessary loss/risk" school of thought.

She would love to avoid loss, but in any plan or debate, or even strategy of mock war, loss was unavoidable. So best lose in a way you want to, making the opponent do what you have planned contingency for instead of something you have not, and making that loss a way to counter-attack ten fold.

She played Chess the same way, using any piece, even the Queen, as bait to lure the opponent and then snatch them up.

However, this was not what Elsa loved in her sister, though it did help to have a light debate on what the proper strategy of defense of a mock kingdom would be...

Her current instructor stressed heavily in classes of law that during war the monarch was the unfailing voice that had the last word, and that they should not be a puppet for the council to pull about.

The Queen should have a perfectly sound idea about her kingdom and how it should be defended, and how to adopt a change in plans should things go differently than one hoped.

Even though her kingdom had been at peace for at least sixty years...

He still stressed the point.

It was nice to have Anna in her head at those times with her mock strategies.

It gave Elsa something to say back.

No; what Elsa loved about her sister was her still apparent innocence.

Her madness gave her the ability to be completely child like at times. She loved to dance about in halls, outside, flitting about with boundless energy as she dragged Elsa anywhere to do anything.

Elsa quickly figured out that Anna loved the most to play with snow.

Her snow.

Elsa very rarely indulged her however. She preferred to keep it under wraps. It was...

Still fresh in her head.

Every time she looked at Anna during those tense times when she would politely make an excuse for not using her power...

Without fail, Elsa's eyes would snap upwards.

To zone in on that stripe of snow white hair amongst the fiery red of the rest. It was an icicle in hell that refused to melt, but stayed there bold as brass.

To remind her.

Of why Anna was mad in the first place.

Because she had failed to protect her sister.

"Elsa! Elsa~ are you in there? Helllooo~ Is anyone home?"

"Huh?"

Anna pointed off to the side. At a flower bush. Again.

All the flowers were close along that one, single bush. Not dead, just closed. Elsa sighed.

"I don't know Anna. I don't know."

"No, not the flowers, there!"

Elsa looked again, and then jumped back, eyes wide.

One of the branches of the bush next to the strange one was on fire. Her magic sprung up and shot out to snuff the flame, but...the ice simply melted. Elsa took a step back, sweeping Anna behind her.

"Hey!"

Eyes narrowed, Elsa tried again with the same result. The flame seemed to shiver and flicker with a sentient life...and then quite suddenly, when Elsa prepped for another shot, Anna held her back.

"She's laughing at you."

Elsa whipped around, fixing Anna with a wide eyed stare that did not fit the angry mouth and voice.

She was angry, and afraid.

Angfraid? No, that sounds disgusting Anna.

"What? She who?"

Anna however, did not oblige an answer to that question, just simply grabbed Elsa and shoved her out of the way with a token "Look out!"

Elsa could not see anything. But she could certainly feel something whip past her head, a mere finger's breadth away from her nose. Elsa looked around in confusion. Anna inexplicably ducked and rolled to her, grabbing her hand and pulling the elder sister away. Another swish of something cold ruffled by her, but what?

"Anna, what...what's going on?"

Anna pulled Elsa behind a statue, and fixed her with an odd look before a horrifying dawn of comprehension came over her. Her voice strangled out in a whisper.

"You...can't see her?"

Elsa shook her head slowly. Anna screwed up her mouth. She made to walk out from behind the statue, but Elsa grabbed her. Her voice was a hiss.

"Where are you going?"

"Maybe...maybe I am crazy. Maybe it's not there."

Elsa felt something crack in her at the tone of voice that complimented the hard, blank face. The face betrayed nothing, but the voice?

There was nothing but pain. Elsa yanked Anna back roughly, over balancing her and drawing her in.

"I can't see it. But I felt it."

For days on end, Elsa had wrestled with herself, and the evidence, the situations, the stories.

Had she made her sister mad?

Or was there another reason she spoke to pictures on the walls?

Now a ball of flame apparently was a woman bent on revenge for Elsa shooting ice at her. Her mouth turned down in thought.

She still did not have an answer.

But she at least had this.

This time at least, something WAS there.

"Could you...talk to her? I'm sorry for shooting ice at her if that's what shes mad about-"

Anna shook her head.

"I don't know who she is...but she didn't come to be nice in the first place...that much I can tell...she's coming closer...dang it Melbourne, wake up!"

Her hand smacked the stone leg of the horse and rider they were hiding behind lightly. Elsa's eyes raked the figure.

She could not see...but quite suddenly, her head, which was near the foot of the man, felt inexplicably cold.

She ducked, fearing the worse...

Or at least, she tried to. Anna had a firm grip on her shoulder, keeping her still.

"Melbourne, your foot is on my sister's head. Could you please keep that...woman...busy? I don't like the look in her eyes..."

The cold instantly left Elsa..Anna didn't look happy.

"Sorceress? She's not using any magic, just trying to swing around her staff. Almost took off Elsa's head...what? Now listen, this is your future queen, I don't want to hear about sorceress...not me you ninny! Elsa will be! Who in their right minds would make ME a queen?"

Elsa felt something cold off to the side of her, and looked up to see the flame sparking there. She tugged on Anna's sleeve.

"Melbourne, I don't want to hear about witch-"

"Anna!"

Anna looked around and spotted something Elsa could not see.

"Melbourne!"

Elsa felt something blow against her, as if something had swing with great force and then been blocked with equal violence. Anna's over riding strength seized Elsa and made her fly.

If Anna were stronger, Elsa felt that she would be flailing about comically like a banner behind her.

Was Elsa now mad as well?

Or was this just a test of sanity?

+~E~+

….


	18. Doubt

…

_We are about to crash into the time line that Frozen's main storyline runs through. _

_Watch your step..._

_...mind your head._

_~C.F Winchester._

_**Sanity**_

_**Chapter Sixteen: Doubt**_

It was a whisper in the back of her head, put there by Elsa herself.

Elsa was to blame for her current turmoil.

It was solely her fault.

Elsa lay awake in her bed. Anna had led her back after a night of their usual escapades...

...and while she did so, Elsa's doubt gnawed at her fun.

Did Anna have magic too?

It was a question. A valid one. Was she too...a witch?

If so...

What...kind?

The simple answer was the one that Elsa tried desperately to match to the facts.

That no, Anna was no witch...

...but she perhaps, had an ability.

To see the departed souls of those long gone?

Perhaps at once time there had been a Melbourne, a Selvan...even an Arthur, surely there was one...Certainly there was a Joan in the world...though she doubted Joan had been in this particular castle...

However, there was another possibility.

Elsa drew herself closer into a ball under her covers as her mind played this sinister possibility.

That Anna was indeed still mad. Mad and with powers of a different nature to Elsa.

Powers that took sinister shape in her madness.

Perhaps she could move things about, or change the temperature of things, and her over wrought, insane mind took the images it saw and made them real with cold figures of the same shape and size to what she saw.

Her mind's illusions made real by her magic...after all.

Her own magic could take her fears or her desires and make them take form in snow.

The doubt assailed her. Elsa curled herself even tighter, now she was a ball.

She wanted to believe.

But the doubt would not let her.

Her fear would not let her.

The ice grew.

The wind roared.

Elsa whimpered.

...and the switch was off the clock.

+~E~+

Short, but self sustaining. =S


End file.
